Philosophical works of the late James Frederick Ferrier in three volumes

LECTURES

ON

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

1&

PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS

OF THE LATE

JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER

B.A. OXOX., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
IX THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS

IN THREE VOLUMES

\

VOL. III.

I

EDITED BY SIR ALEXANDER GRANT, BART., LL.D., PRINCIPAL OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH; AND E. L. LUSHINGTON,

LL.D., LATE PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

NEW EDITION

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLXXXIII

2

v.3

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CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCI-
OUSNESS—Parts I. to VII., 1838-39, . . . 1-257
THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION, 1841, . . 261

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM, 1842, 291

MR BAILEY'S REPLY TO AN ARTICLE IN BLACK-
WOOD'S MAGAZINE, 1843, 351

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES, 1843, . . . .381
REID AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE,

1847, 407

MISCELLANEOUS LECTURES—

Introductory Lecture, Nov. 1856,
Do. do. Nov. 1857,

Lecture, April 1858, .
Introductory Lecture, Nov. 1861,
Lecture on Imagination, 1847,
Do. do. 1848,

463
474
483
495
515
527

VI CONTENTS.

LETTER TO SIR W. HAMILTON (not sent), 1851, . . 542

BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING, 545

BIOGRAPHY OF HEGEL, 558

TRANSLATION, 569

AN INTRODUCTION

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS,

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

Among the fables of the East there is a story which
runs thus : A certain young man inherited from his
forefathers a very wonderful lamp, which for genera-
tions had been the ornament of his family, and from
which he now derived his livelihood, as they, in for-
mer times, had done. Its virtues were of such a
nature that, while by its means all his reasonable
wants were supplied, a check was, at the same time,
imposed upon any extravagant exercise of its benefi-
cence. Once a-day, and no of tener, might its services
be called into requisition. It consisted of twelve
branches, and as soon as these were lighted, twelve
dervishes appeared, each of whom, after performing

A

2 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

sundry circumvolutions, threw him a small "piece of
money, and vanished. Thus was the young man
provided every day with means sufficient for his
daily subsistence; and his desires being moderate,
he for a long time considered this a bountiful provi-
sion, and remained satisfied with the good which he
enjoyed upon such easy terms.

By degrees, however, when he reflected upon his
situation, his heart became disturbed by the stirrings
of avarice and ambition, and a restless desire to
know more of the extraordinary source from whence
his comforts flowed. He was unwilling to die, like
his ancestors, and transmit the lamp to his posterity,
without at least making the attempt to probe his
way into its profounder mysteries. He suspected
that he was merely skimming the surface of a sea
of inexhaustible riches, the depths of which he was
sure the lamp might be made to open up to him, if
he but understood and could give full effect to the
secret of its working. And then, if this discovery
were made, what earthly potentate would be able
to vie with him in magnificence and power!

Accordingly, being filled with these aspiring
thoughts, and eager to learn, if possible, the whole
secret of the lamp, he repaired with it to the abode
of a magician, who was famous for all kinds of re-
condite knowledge. The old man, when he beheld
the lamp, perceived at a glance its surprising virtues,
and his eyes sparkled at the sight. But when again
he turned to the young man, his looks became sud-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 3

denly overcast, and he thus cautioned him in the
words of long experienced wisdom. " Be contented
with thy lot, my son," said he, " and with the good
thou now enjoyest. The ordinary favours of the
lamp enable thee to live in comfort, and to discharge
correctly all the duties of thy station. What more
wouldst thou have ? Take it, therefore, home with
thee again, and employ it as heretofore. But seek
not to call forth, or pry into its more extraordinary
properties, lest some evil befall thee, and the attempt
be for ever fatal to thy peace."

But the young man would not be thwarted in his
project. The counsel of the magician only served to
whet his curiosity by showing it to be not unfounded,
and to confirm him in his determination to unravel,
if possible, and at whatever hazard, the mysterious
powers of his treasure. The old man, therefore, find-
ing that he would not be gainsaid, at length yielded
to his entreaties, and by his art compelled the lamp
to render up the deeper secrets of its nature. The
twelve branches being lighted, the twelve dervishes
made their appearance, and commenced their usual
gyrations, which, however, were speedily cut short
by the magician, who, seizing his staff, smote them
to the earth, where they instantly became transformed
into heaps of gold and silver, and rubies and dia-
monds. The young man gazed on the spectacle with
bewilderment, which soon settled into delight. Now,
thought he, I am rich beyond the wealth of kings ;
there is not a desire of my heart which may not

4 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

now be gratified. Eager, therefore, to experiment at
home, he hastily seized the lamp, and bade adieu to
the magician, who, turning from him with the simple
word " beware," left him to his fate.

No sooner wTas he alone, than he lighted the lamp,
and repeated what he believed to be the other steps
of the process he had just witnessed ; but, lo ! with
what a different result. He had not remarked that
the magician held his staff in his left hand when he
smote the genii; and as he naturally made use of
his right, the effect produced was by no means the
same. On the contrary, instead of being changed
into heaps of treasure beneath his strokes, the der-
vishes became transformed into vindictive demons,
and handled the incautious experimenter so roughly,
that they left him lying half dead on the ground,
with the lamp in fragments by his side.

Eeader! this lamp is typical of thy natural un-
derstanding. Thou hast a light within thee sufficient
to enlighten thy path in all the avocations of thy
daily life, and to supply thee with everything need-
ful to thy welfare and success upon earth. There-
fore be not too inquisitive about it. Whatever thy
calling be, whether lofty or low, tend thy lamp with
care and moderation, and it will never fail thee. It
is a sacred thing ; and perhaps thy wisest part is to
let it shine unquestioned.

Take example from the tranquil ongoings of crea-
tion. There is no self -interrogation here: and yet
how glorious and manifold are the results! There

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 9

is no reflex process passing within the trees of the
forest, when, drinking in life at their hidden roots,
they dazzle thine eyes with beauty elaborated in
darkness. Is this because there is no reason spread
abroad through the kingdoms of nature? If thou
thinkest so, go and be convinced of the contrary by
beholding the geometry of the bee when she builds
her honeyed cells. Here is reason, but reason going
at once to its point, reason working out its end in a
natural and straightforward line. It turns not back
to question, and ask the meaning of itself. It en-
tangles its employer in no perplexities, it weaves
for him no web of matted sophistries ; but how peace-
ful are its operations, and how perfect are its effects !
Go thou, and do likewise.

Next turn to those who, thwarting the natural
evolution of their powers, have turned round upon
themselves, and questioned the light by which their
spirits saw, and what a different spectacle is presented
to thee here ! What ravelled crossings, and what a
breaking-up of the easy and natural mechanism of
thought ! For them the holy fire of their early in-
spiration is burnt out ; and what is on the altar in
its place ? Perhaps a fire holier and more precious
than the first ; the light of an unconsuming and un-
limited freedom, self -achieved, and higher than that
which man was born to. But more probably the altar
is overthrown, and the phantoms of scepticism, fatal-
ism, materialism, or idealism, are haunting the ground
whereon it stood, while the man lies prostrate be-

6 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

neath their blows. Wilt thou not take warning from
his fate ?

Thou, like other created things, wert born a child
of nature, and for long her inevitable instincts were
thy only guides. Art thou willing to remain still
under her fostering care ; wilt thou, for ever, derive
all thy inspiration from her ; and be quickened by
her breath, as the budding woods are quickened by
the breath of spring ? Be so, and in thy choice be
active, be contented, and be happy.

But art thou one who believes that thy true
strength consists, in every instance, in being a rebel
against the bondage of nature; that all her fetters,
however flowery, must be broken asunder ; and that
all her lessons, however pleasing, must be scattered
to the winds, if man would be emphatically man ?
Then thou art already a philosopher indeed, and all
these words are vain as addressed to thee. Thou
hast now found thy true self, where alone it is to be
found, in opposition to the dominion and the dictates
of nature, and thou wilt own her guardianship no
more. Her laws and thy laws now no longer agree,
but stand opposed to each other in direct and irre-
concilable hostility. Nature works beautifully, but
blindly and without reflection. Thou must work, it
may be with pain and difficulty, but, at the same
time, with a seeing soul, and a full consciousness of
what thou art about. Nature fills thy heart with
passions, and tells it to find its happiness in giving
way to them. But, out of consciousness, conscience

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 7

has germinated; and thou sayest unto thyself, that
passion is to be trodden under foot. In the midst of
thy afflictions, nature lends thee no support, no com-
fort except the advice that thou shouldst yield to
them. Obey her dictates, and thou shalt sink into
the dust ; but listen to thyself, and even in the heart
of suffering, thou shalt rise up into higher action.
Further, art thou determined to follow out this oppo-
sition between nature and thyself, and, for practical
as well as speculative ends, to look down into the
foundations on which it rests ? Then it will be idle
to seek any longer to deter thee from penetrating into
the " holy cave, the haunt obscure of old philosophy,"
to have thine eyes unsealed, and the innermost
mysteries of thy "lamp" revealed to thee. Thou
hast chosen thy part ; and, for the chance of freedom
and enlightenment, art willing to run the risk of
having thy soul shaken, and thy peace overthrown, by
the creations of thy own understanding, which may
possibly be transmuted into phantom demons to be-
wilder and confound thee. Still pause for a moment
at the threshold, and before entering carry with thee
this reflection : that thy only chance of safety lies in
the faithfulness and completeness of thy observations.
Think of the fate of the young man who observed
imperfectly, and, dreading an analogous doom, pass
over no fact which philosophy may set before thee,
however trivial and insignificant it may, at first sight,
appear. Do thou note well and remember in which
hand the magician holds his staff.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTEE II,

In resorting to philosophy, therefore, there is no
safety except in the closeness and completeness of
our observations ; and let it be added, that there is
no danger except in the reverse. Push speculation
to its uttermost limits, and error is impossible, if we
have attended rigidly to the facts which philosophy
reveals to us : overlook perhaps but a single fact, and
our reason, otherwise our faithful minister, and truly
a heap of untold treasure, may be converted into a
brood of fiends to baffle and destroy us.

The whole history of science shows that it is in-
attention to the phenomena manifested, and nothing
else, which, in all ages, has been the fruitful mother
of errors in the philosophy of man. Entirely in con-
sequence of this kind of neglect have philosophical
systems become vitiated. A taint enters into them
by reason of the exclusion of certain essential partic-
ulars : and when the peccant humour breaks out, as
it is sure to do sooner or later, it is strange that this
incipient symptom of a cure is often mistaken for the
worst form of the disease. Never was such a taint

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 9

more conspicuously brought to light, never was such
a mistake as to its nature more strikingly illustrated,
than in the instances of Locke and Hume. Locke,
founding on the partial principle of an older philo-
sophy, " Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit
in sensu" banished all original notions from the
mind. Hume, following in the footsteps of the ap-
proved doctrine, took up the notion of cause and
effect, and demonstrated that this relation could not
be perceived by sense, that it never was in sense, and
that consequently the notion of it could not possibly
have any place in intelligence. In fact, he proved
the notion of cause and effect to be a nonentity. But
all moral reasoning, or reasoning respecting matters
of fact, rests upon the notion of cause and effect:
therefore all moral reasoning rests upon a notion
which is a nonentity ; and by the same consequence
is a nonentity itself. Thus Hume, following fairly
out the premises of Locke, struck a blow which
paralysed man's nature in its most vital function.
Like Samson carrying the gates of Gaza, he lifted
human reason absolutely off its hinges ; and who is
there that shall put it on again upon the principles
of the then dominant philosophy ?

But what was the issue of all this ? what was the
good consequence that ensued from it ? Was it that
the conclusion of Hume was true ? Far from it.
Hume himself never dreamt it to be so, never wished
that it should be thought so. Such an intention
would have been at variance with the whole spirit of

10 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

his philosophy — the object of which was to expose,
in all its magnitude, the vice of the prevailing doc-
trines of his times. Is this, says he, your boasted
philosophy ? Behold, then, what its consequences
amount to ! And his reductio, designed, as it wTas, to
act back upon this philosophy, and to confound it, was
certainly most triumphant. If Hume did not rectify
the errors of his predecessors, he at any rate brought
them clearly to light ; and these errors consisted in
the omission of certain phenomena, by which man
was curtailed of his real proportions, and emptied of
his true self. Take another instance. What has in-
volved the doctrine of perception in so much per-
plexity, except the uncertainty and fluctuation which
prevail respecting its facts? Without speculating
one word on the subject, let us look for a moment to
the facts of the question, let us see in what a state
they stand, and how they have been dealt with by
two of our most illustrious philosophers. At the
time of Hume three facts were admitted in the
prevailing doctrine of perception, and understood
to stand exactly upon the same level with regard to
their certainty. First, the object {i.e., the external
world perceived). Second, the image, impression, re-
presentation, or whatever else it may be called, of
this. Third, the subject {i.e., the mind of man per-
ceiving). Hume embraced the second of these as a
fact immediately given ; but displaced the other two
as mediate and hypothetical. Eeid, on the other
hand, rejected the second as mediate and hypothetical,

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 11

and maintained the first and third to be facts imme-
diately given. So that between the two philosophers
the whole three were at once admitted as facts, and
rejected as hypotheses. Which is right and which is
wrong cannot be decided here. Probably Hume is
not so much in the wrong, nor Eeid so much in the
right, as they are generally imagined to be ; for it is
certain that common sense repudiates the conclusion
of the latter, just as much as it does that of the
former. The subject and object, mind and matter,
supposing them to exist, are certainly given in one
indivisible simultaneous fact constituting immediate
perception. This is what the natural understanding
maintains. This is the fact of representation, the
second in our series : a synthesis perhaps of the
other two facts; but nevertheless, according to the
testimony of common sense, a distinct and undeni-
able fact, just as much as they are distinct and un-
deniable facts. This is the fact which Hume admits,
and which Eeid, however, rejects — his rejection of it
being indeed the very lever by which he imagines
himself at once to have replaced the other two facts
in their original position, and to have displaced the
conclusions by means of which Hume was supposed
to have dislodged them. Common sense, therefore,
is not more enlisted on the side of Eeid, than on the
side of Hume ; and the truth is, the question remains
as much open to question as ever. But the issue to
which these philosophers have brought it, proves that
there must have been some flaw in the original ob-

12 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

servation of the facts of perception. The great dis-
crepancy between them, and the fact that neither of
them has brought the question to any satisfactory
termination, notwithstanding the thorough and sift-
ing manner in which they have discussed and ex-
hausted all the materials before them, can only be
accounted for upon this ground. They have certainly
made it apparent that the phenomena of perception
have never been correctly observed, or faithfully
stated : and that is the good which they have done.

But the danger accruing from inattention on the
part of man, to the facts revealed to him in the study
of himself, is to be seen in its strongest light when
reflected from the surface of his moral and practical
life. Man takes to pieces only to reconstruct ; and
he can only reconstruct a thing out of the materials
into which he has analysed it. When, therefore,
after having analysed himself, he seeks to build
himself up again (such a task is self-education), he
can only work with the divided elements which he
has found. He has nothing else under his hand.
Therefore, when any element has escaped him in the
analysis, it will also escape him, and not be com-
bined, in the synthesis : and so far he will go forth
into the world again shorn of a portion of himself ;
and if the neglect has involved any important ingre-
dient of his constitution, he will go forth a mutilated
skeleton. Such things have often happened in the
history of mankind. Speculative inquirers, who, in
analysing man (i.e., themselves), or man's actions

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 13

(i.e., their own), have found no morality, no honour,
no religion therein, have seldom, in putting the same
together again, placed any of these elements in their
own breasts as practical men. And after a time it
is the tendency of these omissions, and of this influ-
ence of theory upon practice, to operate on a wider
scale, and pervade the heart of the whole people
among whom such things occur, particularly among
its well-educated ranks — witness France towards the
end of the last century, with its host of economists,
calculators, and atheists, who emptied the universe
of morality, and set up expediency in its stead.

" Arouse man," says Schelling, "to the consciousness
of what he is, and he will soon learn to be what he
ought." It may be added, teach him to think him-
self something which he is not, and no power in
heaven or in earth will long keep him from framing
himself practically in conformity with his theoretical
pattern, or from becoming that which he ought not
to be. Speculative opinion always acts vitally upon
practical character, particularly when it acts upon
masses of men and long generations. Theory is the
source out of which practice flows. The Hindoo
beholds himself, as he conceives, whirling, with all
other things, within the eddies of a gigantic fatalism.
So far he is a speculator merely. But trace out his
philosophy into his actual life, and see how supine
he is in conduct and in soul. All his activities
are dead. His very personality is really gone, be-
cause he looks upon it as gone. He has really

14 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

no freedom of action, because he believes himself
to have none. He views himself but as "dust in
the wind," and viewing himself thus, he becomes,
in practice, the worthless thing which in theory he
dreams himself to be. Fatalism, too, has ever been
the creed of usurpers ; and they have ever made it
their apology also in their strivings after more tyran-
nical rule. Did conscience for a moment cross the
path of these scourges of the earth, it was brushed
aside with the salving dogma that man is but a ma-
chine in the hands of a higher power. Napoleon, in
his own eyes, was but a phantom of terror shaped on
the battle-field, by the winds of circumstance, out of
the thunder-smoke of his own desolating wars ; and,
with this reflection, his enslaving arm was loosed
more fiercely than before. Finally, through inatten-
tion to the true phenomena of man, we may be mis-
led into all the errors of Rochefoucauld. And here
our errors will not stop at their theoretical stage.
In order to prove our creed to be correct, we must,
and will ere long, make our own characters corre-
spond with his model of man, believing it to be
the true one.

Such and so great is the peril to which we are
exposed in our practical characters, as well as in our
speculative beliefs, from any oversight committed in
studying the phenomena of ourselves. There is no
call upon any man to observe these phenomena.
Sufficient in general for his day are the troubles
thereof, without this additional source of perplexity.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 15

But if he must study them, let him study them faith-
fully, and without curtailment. If he will bring
himself before the judgment-seat of his own soul, he
is bound to bring himself thither unmutilated and
entire, in order that he may depart from thence
greater and better, and not less perfect than he
came. He is not entitled to pass over without
notice any fact which may be exhibited to him
there, for he cannot tell how much may depend upon
it, and whether consequences, mighty to change the
whole aspect of his future self, may not be slumber-
ing unsuspected in this insignificant germ. Let
him note all things faithfully; for although, like
the young man in the fable of the lamp, he may be
unable to divine at first the great results which are
dependent on the minutest facts, he may at any rate
take a lesson from his fate, and, when studying at the
feet of philosophy, may observe correctly in which
hand that magician holds his staff.

16 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTER III.

But, inasmuch as our observation must not be put
forth vaguely or at random, but must be directed by
some principle of method, the question comes to be,
In what way are the true facts of man's being to be
sought for and obtained ? There is a science called
the " science of the human mind," the object of which
is to collect and systematise the phenomena of man's
moral and intellectual nature. If this science ac-
complishes the end proposed, its method must be the
very one which we ought to make use of. But if it
should appear that this science carries in its very
conception such a radical defect that all the true and
distinctive phenomena of man necessarily elude its
grasp, and that it is for ever doomed to fall short of
the end it designs to compass, then our adoption of
its method could only lead us to the poorest and
most unsatisfactory results. That such is its real
character will, it is believed, become apparent as we
proceed.

The human mind, not to speak it profanely, is like
the goose that laid golden eggs. The metaphysician

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 17

resembles the analytic poulterer who slew it to get
at them in a lump, and found nothing for his pains.
Leave the mind to its own natural workings, as
manifested in the imagination of the poet, the fire
and rapid combinations of the orator, the memory of
the mathematician, the gigantic activities and never-
failing resources of the warrior and statesman, or
even the manifold powers put forth in everyday
life by the most ordinary of men ; and what can be
more wonderful and precious than its productions ?
Cut into it metaphysically, with a view of grasping
the embryo truth, and of ascertaining the process by
which all these bright results are elaborated in the
womb, and every trace of " what has been " vanishes
beneath the knife; the breathing realities are dead,
and lifeless abstractions are in their place ; the divi-
nity has left its shrine, and the devotee worships at
a deserted altar ; the fire from heaven is lost in cha-
otic darkness, and the godlike is nothing but an
empty name. Look at thought, and feeling, and
passion, as they glow on the pages of Shakespeare.
Golden eggs, indeed ! Look at the same as they
stagnate on the dissecting-table of Dr Brown, and
marvel at the change. Behold how shapeless and
extinct they have become !

Man is a " living soul ; " but science has been
trained among the dead. Man is a free agent ; but
science has taken her lessons from dependent things,
the inheritors and transmitters of an activity, gigantic
indeed, but which is not their own. What then will

B

18 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

she do when brought face to face with such a novelty,
such an anomaly as he ? Instead of conforming her-
self to him, she will naturally seek to bend him
down in obedience to the early principles she has
imbibed. She has subdued all things to herself ;
and now she will endeavour to end by putting man,
too, under her feet. Like a treacherous warrior,
who, after having conquered the whole world in
his country's cause, returns to enslave the land that
gave him birth, Science, coming home laden with
the spoils of the universe, will turn her arms against
him whose banner she bore, and in whose service
she fought and triumphed. By benumbing a vitality
she cannot grasp, and by denying or passing by,
blindly or in perplexity, a freedom she can neither
realise nor explain, she will do her best to bring
him under the dominion of the well-known laws
which the rest of the universe obeys. But all her
efforts ever have been, and ever shall be, unavailing.
She may indeed play with words, and pass before us
a plausible rotation of " faculties." She may intro-
duce the causal nexus into thought, and call the
result " association." But the man himself is not to
be found in this " calculating machine." He, with
all his true phenomena, has burst alive from under
her petrific hand, and leaves her grasping "airy
nothings," not even the shadow of that which she
is striving to comprehend ; for, though she can soar
the solar height, and gaze unblinded on the stars,
man soars higher still, and, in his lofty region, she

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. . 19

has got waxen wings, that fall to pieces in the blaze
of the brighter sun of human freedom.

These things are spoken of physical science; but
they apply equally to the science of the human mind,
because this science is truly and strictly physical in
its method and conditions, and, to express it in gene-
ral terms, in the tone it assumes, and the position it
occupies, when looking at the phenomena of man.
As has been already hinted, it is not wonderful that
man, when endeavouring to comprehend and take the
measure of himself, should, in the first instance at
least, have adopted the tone and method of the phys-
ical sciences, and occupied a position analogous to
that in which they stand. The great spectacle of the
universe is the first to attract the awakening intel-
ligence of man; and hence the earliest speculators
were naturalists merely. And what is here true in
the history of the race, is true also in the history of
the individual. Every man looks at nature, and, con-
sciously or unconsciously, registers her appearances
long before he turns his eyes upon himself. Thus a
certain method, and certain conditions, of inquiry,
are fixed ; what is considered the proper and perti-
nent business of science is determined, before man
turns his attention to himself. And when he does
thus turn it, nothing can be more natural, or indeed
inevitable, than that he should look at the new object
altogether by the light of the old method, and of his
previously-acquired conception of science. But man
not having been taken into account when these con-

20 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

ceptions were first formed, and when this method was
fixed, the question comes to be, How does this appli-
cation of them answer when man forms the object of
research ? For it is at least possible that, in his case,
the usual mode of scientific procedure may misgive.

It is unfair to condemn anything unheard. It is
idle and unreasonable to charge any science with
futility without at least endeavouring to substantiate
the charge, and to point out the causes of its failure.
Let us, then, run a parallel between the procedure of
science as applied to nature, and the procedure of
science as applied to man, and see whether, in the
latter case, science does not occupy a position of such
a nature, that if she maintains it, all the true phe-
nomena for which she is looking necessarily become
invisible ; and if she deserts it, she forgoes her own
existence. For, be it observed, that the " science of
the human mind " claims to be a science only in so
far as it can follow the analogy of the natural sciences,
and, consequently, if its inability to do this to any
real purpose be proved, it must relinquish all preten-
sions to the name.

In the first place, then, what is the proper business
and procedure of the natural sciences ? This may be
stated almost in one word. It is to mark, register,
and classify the changes which take place among
the objects constituting the material universe. These
objects change, and they do nothing more.

In the second place, what is the proper business
and procedure of science in its application to man ?

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 21

Here science adopts precisely the same views, and
follows precisely the same method. Man objectises
himself as " the human mind," and declares that the
only fact, or at least that the sum total of all the facts
appertaining to this object, is that it is visited by
certain changes constituting its varieties of " feeling,"
"passion," "states of mind," or by whatever other
name they may be called, and that the only legiti-
mate business of science here is to observe these
changes and classify them.

This makes the matter very simple. The analogy
between mind and matter seems to be as complete as
could be wished, and nothing appears to stand in the
way of the establishment of kindred sciences of the
two founded upon this analogy. But let us look into
the subject a little more closely; and not to rush
hastily into any difficulties without a clue, let us
commence with certain curious verbal or grammatical
considerations which lie on the very surface of the
exposition given of the usual scientific procedure, as
applied both to nature and to man. A phenomenon
breaking through the surface of language, and start-
ling our opinions out of their very slumbers, makes
its appearance, we may be sure, not without authentic
credentials from some deeper source ; and if we attend
to them we may be assisted in rectifying our hasty
views of truth, or in correcting errors that we may
have overlooked by reason of the very obviousness
and boldness with which they came before us. First,
however, it is to be premised that the reader must

22 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

suppose himself in the situation of one who can
extract no more from language than what the words,
of themselves — that is, taken irrespectively of any
previously acquired knowledge on his part — afford to
him. He must bring no supplementary thought of
his own to eke out explanations which the words do
not supply him with. He must not bridge or fill up
with a sense born of his own mind, hiatuses which
the language leaves gaping. It is only upon such
conditions as these that the question upon which we
are entering can be fairly canvassed ; it is only upon
these conditions that we can fairly test the " science
of the human mind," and ascertain, as we are about
to do from its verbal bearings, whether it be a valid
or a nugatory research.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 23

CHAPTER IV.

In order, therefore, to make sure that the requisitions
demanded in the preceding chapter are complied
with, let us suppose the following dialogue to take
place between an " inquirer " into " the human mind,"
and an inhabitant of some planet different from ours ;
a person who can bring to the discussion neither
ignorant prejudices nor learned prepossessions, and
whose information respecting the subject in hand does
not outrun the language in which it is conveyed.
The universe, commences the metaphysician,1 is

1 In order to show that the accompanying dialogue is not directed
against imaginary errors in science, and also with the view of ren-
dering the scope of our observations more obvious and clear, we
will quote one or two specimens of the current metaphysical lan-
guage of the day. The whole substance of Dr Brown's philosophy
and scientific method is contained in the following passage : — "That
which perceives," says he (namely, mind), "is a part of nature as
truly as the objects of perception which act on it, and as a part of
nature is itself an object of investigation purely physical. It is
known to us only in the successive changes which constitute the
variety of our feelings ; but the regular sequence of these changes
admits of being traced, like the regularity which we are capable of
discovering in the successive organic changes of our bodily frame."
— (Physiology of the Mind, p. 1, 2.) "There is," says Dr Cook of

24 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

divided into two distinct orders of existence, mind
and matter. Matter is known by its changes alone,
mind also is known only by its changes. Thus, con-
tinues he, for all scientific purposes, the analogy
between the' two is complete, and science in both
cases is practicable only by noting these changes and
the order in which they recur.

" But may I ask," interposes the foreign interlocu-
tor, " to ivJwm these changes are known ? "

" To me, the inquirer, to be sure ! " answers the
metaphysician.

" Then," rejoins the other, " ought you not, logically
speaking, to say that your universe resolves itself
into three distinct orders of existence : 1st, Mind ;
2d, Matter; and 3d, This which you call 'me/ to
whom the changes of the other two are known ; and
when sciences of the first and second are complete,

St Andrews, "a mental constitution, through which we communi-
cate with the world around us." — (Synopsis of Lectures, p. 4.) We
could quote a hundred other instances of this kind of language, but
these two are sufficient for our purpose. Now, what is the obvious
and irresistible inference which such language as this forces upon
us ? or, rather, what is the plain meaning of the words we have
quoted ? It is this, that we possess a mind just as we possess a
body ; that is to say, that man consists of three elements, mind,
body, and himself possessing both. This view of the subject may
be disclaimed and protested against in words, but still it continues
virtually to form the leading idea of the whole of our popular psy-
chology. We may, indeed, be told that "mind" and ourselves are
identical, but this statement is never acted upon to any real pur-
pose, this fact is never sifted with any degree of attention. If it
were, then "mind" would be altogether annihilated as an object of
investigation. This is what we have endeavoured to make out in
the chapter which this note accompauies.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 25

does not a science, or some knowledge, at least, of the
third still remain a desideratum ? "

"Not at all," replies the inquirer, "for 'I' and
1 mind ' are identical. The observed and the observer,
the knowing subject and the known object, are here
one and the same : and whatever is a science of the
one is a science of the other also."

" Then you get out of one error only to be convicted
of another. You set out with saying that mind, like
matter, was visited by various changes, and that this
was all ; you said that changing was its only fact, or
was, at least, the general complementary expression
of the whole of its facts. So far I perfectly under-
stood the analogy between mind and matter, and
considered it complete. I also saw plainly that any
principles of science applicable to the one object
would likewise be applicable to the other. But when
you are questioned as to whom these changes are
known, you answer ' to me/ When further interro-
gated, you will not admit this ' me ' to be a third ex-
istence different from the other two, but you identify
it with mind ; that is to say, you make mind take cog-
nisance of its own changes. And in doing this, you
depart entirely from your first position, which was,
that mind did nothing more than change. You now,
in contradiction to your first statement, tell me that
this is not all. You tell me that moreover it is aivare
of its own changes ; and in telling me this, you bring
forward a fact connected with mind altogether new.
For to change and to be cognisant of change ; for a

26 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

thing to be in a particular state, and to be aware that
it is in this state, is surely not one and the same fact,
but two totally distinct and separate facts. In proof
of which witness the case of matter ; or perhaps
matter also does something more than change; per-
haps matter too has a ' me,' which is identical with it,
and cognisant of its changes. Has it so ? Do you
identify your ' me ' with matter likewise, and do you
make matter take notice of its own changes ? And
do you thus still preserve entire the analogy between
mind and matter ? "

"No."

"Then the parallel is at an end. So far as the
mere fact of change in either case is concerned, this
parallel remains perfect, and if you confine your
attention to this fact, it is not to be denied that
analogous sciences of the two objects may be estab-
lished upon exactly the same principles. But when
you depart from this fact, as you have been forced to
do by a criticism which goes no deeper than the mere
surface of the language you make use of ; and when
you take your stand upon another fact which is to be
found in the one object, while the opposite of it is
to be found in the other object ; the analogy between
them becomes, in that point, completely violated.
And this violation carries along with it, as shall be
shown, the total subversion of any similarity between
the two methods of inquiry which might have re-
sulted from it, supposing it to have been preserved
unbroken. You have been brought, by the very Ian-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 27

guage you employ, to signalise a most important dis-
tinction between mind and matter. You inform me
that both of them change ; but that while one of them
takes no cognisance of its changes, the other does.
You tell me that in the case of matter the object
known is different from the subject knowing, but that
in the case of mind the object known is the same as
the subject knowing. Disregarding, then, the fact of
change as it takes place in either object, let us attend
a little more minutely to this latter fact. It is care-
lessly slurred over in ordinary metaphysics; but it
is certain, that our attention as psychologists ought
to be chiefly directed, if not exclusively confined to it,
inasmuch as a true knowledge of any object is to be
obtained by marking the point in which it differs
from other things, and not the point in which it
agrees with them. "VVe have found in mind a fact
which is peculiar to it; and this is, not that it
changes, but that it takes cognisance of its changes.
It now remains to be seen what effect this new
fact will have upon your 'science of the human
mind.' "

" First of all," says the metaphysical inquirer,
" allow me to make one remark. I neglected to men-
tion that mind is essentially rational. It is endowed
with reason or intelligence. Now, does not this en-
dowment necessarily imply that mind must be con-
scious of its various changes, and may not the matter
in this way be relieved of every difficulty ? "

" To expose fully," replies the other disputant, " the

28 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

insufficiency of this view, would require a separate
discussion, involving the real, and not the mere logical
bearings of the question. This is what we are not
at liberty to go into at present. We are confining
ourselves as much as possible to the mere lan-
guage of metaphysical inquiry ; I, therefore, content
myself with answering, that if by reason is meant
conscious or reflective reason, and if this is held to be
identical with mind, of course, in that case, mind is
necessarily conscious of its own changes. But such
reason is not one phenomenon but two phenomena,
which admit of very easy discrimination, and which
are often to be found actually discriminated both in
ourselves and in the universe around us. Reason,
taken singly, and viewed by its own light, is a mere
' state of mind ' in which there is nothing, any more
than there is in the ' states of matter,' to countenance
the presumption that it should take cognisance of its
own operation ; a priori, there is no more ground for
supposing that ' reason,' ' feeling,' ' passion,' and ' states
of mind' whatsoever, should be conscious of them-
selves, than that thunder and lightning, and all the
changes of the atmosphere should. Mind, endow it
with as much reason as you please, is still perfectly
conceivable as existing in all its varying moods, with-
out being, at the same time, at all conscious of them.
Many creatures are rational without being conscious ;
therefore human consciousness can never be explained
out of human reason."

" All I suppose, then, that can be said about the

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 29

matter," replies the inquirer, "is, that human con-
sciousness is a fact known from experience."

" Exactly so," rejoins the other ; " and now we have
reached the point of the question, and I wish you to
observe particularly the effect which this fact has
upon ' the human mind,' and the ' science of the
human mind.' The results of our arguments shall
be summed up and concluded in a few words."

" Matter is not ' I.' I know it only by its changes.
It is an object to me, Ohjicitur mihi. This is intel-
ligible enough, or is at least known from experience,
and a science of it is perfectly practicable, because it
is really an object to me. Suppose, then, that ' mind '
also is not I, but that I have some mode of becoming
acquainted with its phenomena or changes just as I
have of becoming acquainted with those of matter.
This, too, is perfectly conceivable. Here, also, I have
an object. Aliquod ohjicitur mihi : and of this I can
frame a science upon intelligible grounds. But I can
attribute no consciousness to this object. The con-
sciousness is in myself. But suppose I vest myself
in this object. I thus identify myself with mind, and
realise consciousness as a fact of mind, but in the
meantime what becomes of mind as an object ? l It
has vanished in the process. An object can be con-
ceived only as that which may possibly become an
object to something else. Now what can mind become

1 Of course it is not merely meant that mind is not an object of
sense. Far more than this : it is altogether inconceivable as an
object of thought.

30 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

an object to ? Not to me, for I am it, and not some-
thing else. Not to something else without being
again denuded of consciousness ; for this other being
could only mark its changes as I did, and not endow
it with consciousness without vesting in it its own
personality, as I had done. Perhaps you imagine
that the synthesis of ' I ' and ' mind ' may be resolved ;
and that thus the latter may again be made the object
of your research. Do you maintain that the synthesis
may be resolved in the first place really ? Then you
adopt our first supposition when we supposed that
' mind ' was not ' I.' In this case ' mind ' is left with
all its changing phenomena, its emotions, passions,
&c, and the consciousness of them remains vested in
that which is called ' 1/ and thus ' mind ' is divested
of its most important fact. Or, in the second place,
do you suppose the synthesis resolved ideally ? But,
in this case too, it will be found that the fact of con-
sciousness clings on the one side of the inquiring
subject ('I'), and cannot be conceived on the side
of the object inquired into ('mind'), unless the
synthesis of the subject and object which was
ideally resolved be again ideally restored. The
conclusion of this is, that if the synthesis of ' I '
and ' mind ' be resolved either really or ideally, con-
sciousness vanishes from ' mind,' and if it be main-
tained entire, 'mind' becomes inconceivable as an
object of research. Finally, are you driven to the
admission that mind is an object, only in a fictitious
sense ; then here indeed you speak the truth. That

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 31

which is called 'I' is a living reality, and though
mind were annihilated, it would remain a repository
of given facts. But that which is called mind is truly
an object only in a fictitious sense, and being so, is,
therefore, only a fictitious object, and consequently
the science of it is also a fiction and an imposture."

" How, then, do you propose to establish a science
of ourselves ? "

" In the first place, by brushing away the human
mind, with all its rubbish of states, faculties, &c, for
ever from between ourselves and the universe around
us : and then by confining our attention exclusively
to the given fact of consciousness. Dr Eeid was sup-
posed to have done philosophy considerable service
by exploding the old doctrine of ideas. By removing
them he cut down an hypothesis, and brought ' mind '
into immediate contact with external things. But
he left the roots of the evil flourishing as vigorously
as ever. He indeed lopped no more than a very
insignificant twig from a tree of ignorance and error,
which darkened, and still darkens, both the heavens
and the earth. Until the same office which he per-
formed towards ideas be performed towards 'mind'
itself, there can be neither truth, soundness, nor satis-
faction in psychological research. For 'the human
mind' stands between the man himself and the
universe around him, playing precisely, only to a
greater and more detrimental extent, the part of that
hypothetical medium which ideas before the time of
Dr Eeid played between it and outward objects.

32 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

And the writer who could make this apparent, and
succeed in getting it banished from the vocabulary of
philosophy, and confined to common language as the
word ideas now is, would render the greatest possible
service to the cause of truth. Is it not enough for a
man that he is himself? There can be no dispute
about that. / am ; what more would I have ? what
more would I be ? why would I be ' mind ' ? what do
I know about it ? what is it to me, or I to it ? I am
myself, therefore let it perish."

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 33

CHAPTEE V.

In the foregoing dialogue it was shown that lan-
guage itself, and consequently that the very nature
of thought, render impracticable anything like a
true and real science of the human mind. It ap-
peared that if mind be conceived of as an object of
research, its vital distinguishing and fundamental
phenomenon, namely, consciousness, necessarily be-
comes invisible, inasmuch as it adheres tenaciously
to the side of the inquiring subject ; and that if it
be again invested with this phenomenon, it becomes
from that moment inconceivable as an object. In
the first case, a science of it is nugatory, because it
cannot see or lay hold of its principal and peculiar
phenomenon. In the second case, it is impossible,
because it has no object to work upon. We are now
going to tread still more deeply into the realities of
the subject.

In the preceding chapter the question was put,

I whether reason or intelligence, considered as the essen-
tial endowment of mind,- was not sufficient to explain
away 'every difficulty involved in the consideration,

34 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

that while one kind of existence (matter) changed,
without being aware of its changes, another kind of
existence (mind) also changed ; and, moreover, took
account to itself of its changes, or was cognisant of
them. In virtue of what does this difference exist
between them ? In virtue of what does this cognis-
ance take place in the one case and not in the other ?
It is answered, in virtue of reason present in the one
instance, and absent in the other. But this is not so
plain, so simple, or so sure as it appears. We now
address ourselves to the examination of this question
and answer, as the subject we had in hand in the
foregoing chapter did not permit us to discuss them
fully in that place.

Leaving man out of the survey, let us look abroad
into the universe around us, and consider what is
presented to us there. In mineral, in vegetable, and
in animal nature, we behold life in the greatest pos-
sible vigour and variety. Active processes are every-
where going on; and throughout the length and
breadth of creation there is a constant succession of
changes. The whole earth is, indeed, teeming with
every form and every colour of existence ; and that
enjoyment is there too, who can doubt when spring
is in the air, and the lark singing in the cloud ?

Here, then, we have a creation brimful of activity
and life, and no pause in all its vigorous and mul-
tifarious ongoings. What is there, then, in man
which is not to be found here also, and even in
greater and more perfect abundance ? Is it intelli-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 35

gence ? Is it reason ? You answer that it is. But
if by reason is meant (and nothing else can be meant
by it) the power of adapting means to the produc-
tion of ends, skill and success in scientific contriv-
ances, or in the beautiful creations of art, then the
exclusive appropriation of reason to man is at once
negatived and put to shame by the facts which na-
ture displays. For how far is human intelligence left
behind in many things by the sagacity of brutes, and
by the works which they accomplish ! What human
geometer can build like a bird its airy cradle, or like
the bee her waxen cells ? And in exquisite work-
manship, how much do natures still more inanimate
than these transcend all that can be accomplished
even by the wisest of men ? " Behold the lilies of the
field, they toil not, neither do they spin; yet Solo-
mon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
these." Perhaps you may say that these things are
entirely passive and unintelligent in themselves, and
that in reality it is not they, but the Creator, who
brings about all the wonders we behold; that the
presiding and directing reason is not in them, but in
Him. And this may readily be admitted; but, in
return, it may be asked home, Is man's reason vested
in the Creator too ?

Do you answer Yes ? Then look what the conse-
quences are. You still leave man a being fearfully
and wonderfully made. He may still be something
more than what many of his species at this moment
are, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. He

36 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

may still be a scientific builder of houses and of
ships, a builder and a destroyer of cities. He may
still subdue to his dominion the beasts of the field,
and raise himself to be a ruler over his fellow-men.
The reason within him is not his own, yet in virtue
of it he may perform works inconceivably wonder-
ful and great. But, with all this, what is he, and
what sort of activity is his 1 Truly the activity of a
spoke in an unresting wheel. Nothing connected
with him is really his. His actions are not his own.
Another power lives and works within him, and he
is its machine. You have placed man completely
within nature's domain, and embraced him under
the law of causality. Hence his freedom is gone,
together with all the works of freedom ; and, in
freedom's train, morality and responsibility are
also fled.

Do you answer No to the question just put ? Do
you say that man's reason is his own, and is not to
be referred to any other being ? Then I ask you
why, and on what grounds, do you make this answer ?
Why, in one instance, do you sign away the reason
from the immediate agent, the animal, and fix it
upon the Creator, and why in another instance do
you confine and attribute it to the immediate agent,
the man ? Why should the engineer have the abso-
lute credit of his work ? and why should not the
beaver and the bee ? Do you answer that man ex-
hibits reason in a higher, and animals in a lower
degree; and that therefore his reason is really his

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 37

own ? But what sort of an answer, what sort of
an inference, is this ? Is it more intelligible that
the reason of any being should be its own abso-
lutely, when manifested in a high degree, than when
manifested in a low degree ? or is the converse not
much the more intelligible proposition ? If one man
has a hundred thousand pounds in his coffers, and
another a hundred pence, would you conclude that
the former sum was the man's own, because it was
so large, and that the latter sum was not the man's
own, because it was so small ; or would you not be
disposed to draw the very opposite conclusion ? Be-
sides, the question is not one of degree at all. We
ask, Why is the reason of man said to belong to him
absolutely as his own, and why is the reason put
forth by animals not said to belong to them in the
least ?

As it is vain, then, to attempt to answer this ques-
tion by attending to the manifestations of reason
itself, as displayed either in man or in the other
objects of the universe, we must leave the fact of
reason altogether, it being a property possessed in
common, both by him and by them, and one which
carries in it intrinsically no evidence to proclaim the
very different tenures by which it is held in the one
case and in the other; and we must look out for
some other fact which is the peculiar possession of
man ; some fact which may be shown to fall in with
his reason, and give it a different turn from the
course which it takes in its progress through the

38 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

other creatures of the universe, thus making it attri-
butable to himself, and thereby rendering him a free,
a moral, and an accountable agent. If we can dis-
cover such a fact as this, we shall be able, out of it,
to answer the question with which we are engaged.
Let us, then, look abroad into the universe once
more, and there, throughout " all that it inherit,"
mark, if we can, the absence of some fact which is
to be found conspicuously present in man.

Continuing, then, our survey of the universe, we
behold works of all kinds, and of surpassing beauty,
carried on. Mighty machinery is everywhere at
work ; and on all sides we witness marvellous mani-
festations of life, of power, and of reason. The sun
performs his revolution in the sky, and keeps his
appointed pathway with unwearied and unerring
foot, while the seasons depend upon his shining.
The ant builds her populous cities among the fallen
forest-leaves, collects her stores, and fills her gran-
aries with incomparable foresight. Each living-
creature guards itself from danger, and provides for
its wants with infallible certainty and skill. They
can foresee the very secrets of the heavens, and
betake themselves to places of shelter with the
thunder in their quaking hearts long before the bolt
falls which shatters the green palaces of the woods.
But still verily "there is a path which no fowl
knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen :
the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce
lion passed by it. The depth saith, It is not in me ;

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 39

and the sea saith, It is not with me." l And this path
which is " kept close from the fowls of the air," and,
with one exception, from the " eyes of all living," is
no other than the path of consciousness.

What effect has the absence of consciousness upon
the universe ? Does it empty the universe of exist-
ence? Far from it. Nature is still thriving, and
overflowing with life throughout all her kingdoms.
Does it empty the universe of intelligence ? Far
from it. The same exquisite adaptation of means to
ends is to be witnessed as heretofore, the same well-
regulated processes, the same infallible results, and
the same unerring sagacities. But still, with all
this, it is what may be termed but a one-sided uni-
verse. Under one view it is filled to the brim with
life and light ; under another view it is lying within
the very blackest shadow of darkness and of death.
The first view is a true one, because all the creatures
it contains are, indeed, alive, and, revelling in exist-
ence, put forth the most wonderful manifestations of
reason. The second view is also a true one, because
none of these creatures (man excepted) know that
they exist ; no notion of themselves accompanies their
existence and its various changes, neither do they
take any account to themselves of the reason which
is operating within them : it is reserved for man to
live this double life. To exist, and to be conscious of
existence ; to be rational, and to know that he is so.

But what do we mean precisely by the word con-

1 Job xxviii. 7, 8, 14.

40 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

sciousness, and upon what ground do we refuse to
attribute consciousness to the animal creation ? In
the first place, by consciousness we mean the notion
of self; that notion of self, and that self -reference,
which in man generally, though by no means invari-
ably, accompanies his sensations, passions, emotions,
play of reason, or states of mind whatsoever. In the
second place, how is it known that animals do not
possess this consciousness ? This is chiefly known
from the fact that certain results or effects in man
may be distinctly observed and traced growing out
of this consciousness or self -reference on his part;
and these results not making their appearance in the
animal creation, it is fairly to be inferred that the
root out of which they spring is wanting in the
animal creation too. The most important of these
are conscience, morality, and responsibility, which
may be shown to be based in consciousness, and
necessary sequents thereof. It will be admitted
that animals have no conscience or moral sense,
therefore if it can be shown that this has its distinct
origin in consciousness — that consciousness in its
simplest act contains the seeds of a nascent morality,
which must come to maturity — it must also be con-
cluded that animals have no consciousness either.
Or if they have, deep and dreadful indeed is the
condemnation they merit, having the foundation
laid, and yet no superstructure erected thereupon ;
the seed sown, and yet the field altogether barren.
Wherever we behold' corn growing, we conclude that

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 41

corn has been planted; and wherever we behold
none, we are entitled to infer that the conditions
upon which corn grows have been awanting — namely,
that the sowing of it has never taken place. There
are other reasons besides these; but as it will pro-
bably be universally admitted that animals do not
possess the notion of self, and are incapable of any
sort of self-reference, it seems unnecessary to argue
this point at any greater length.

We have found, then, the fact of consciousness
prominently visible in man, and nowhere apparent
in any other being inhabiting the universe around
him. Let us now pause upon this fact, and, availing
ourselves of its assistance, let us sum up very shortly
the results to which it has conducted us. The first
question put was, whether man, being endowed with
reason, is not, on that account, necessarily cognisant
of his powers ; whether in virtue of it he does not
necessarily form the notion of self, and become cap-
able of self -reference ; and, in short, whether reason
ought not to be regarded as the essential and charac-
teristic property by which he may be best discrimi-
nated from the other occupants of the earth. A
review of the universe around us then showed us
that other creatures besides man were endowed with
copious stores of reason, and that their works were
as rational and as wonderful as his. So far, there-
fore, as mere reason on either side was concerned,
they and he were found to stand exactly upon the
same footing. The facts themselves forbade that he

42 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

should appropriate it exclusively to himself. But
here the argument was interrupted by the statement
that the reason of animals is not their own. This
was rebutted by the question : Is man's reason, then,
his own ? Was the answer No ? then freedom, mor-
ality, and responsibility were struck dead, and other
consequences followed, too appalling to be thought
of. Was the answer Yes ? then some reason for this
answer was demanded, and must be given, for it
contradicts the other statement with regard to the
reason of animals, in which it was declared that this
power was not their own. To find, then, a satisfac-
tory reason of fact for this answer, we again looked
forth over the life-fraught fields of creation. We
there still beheld reason operating on a great and
marvellous scale, and yet at the same time we found
no consciousness thereof. This, then, plainly proved
that the presence of reason by no means necessarily
implied a cognisance of reason in the creature mani-
festing it. It proved that man, like other beings,
might easily have been endowed with reason, without
at the same time becoming aware of his endowment,
or blending with it the notion of himself. The first
question, then, is completely answered. It does not
follow that man must necessarily take cognisance of
his operations, and refer his actions to himself because
he is rational, for all the other creatures around are
also rational, without taking any such cognisance, or
making any such reference; neither can reason be
pointed out as his peculiar or distinguishing charac-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 43

teristic, for it is manifested by all other beings as
well as by him.

But when we turned from the universe to man, we
found in him, besides reason, another fact, a pheno-
menon peculiarly his own — namely, the fact of con-
sciousness. This, and this alone, is the fact which
marks man off from all other things with a line of
distinct and deep-drawn demarcation. This is the
fact, out of which the second question which occupied
us is to be answered. This is the fact, which reason
falling in with, and doubling upon in man, becomes
from that moment absolutely his own. This is the
fact which bears us out in attributing our reason and
all our actions to ourselves. By means of it we
absolutely create for ourselves a personality to which
we justly refer, and for which we lawfully claim, all
our faculties, and all our doings. It is upon this
fact, and not upon the fact of his reason, that civil-
ised man has built himself up to be all that we now
know and behold him to be. Freedom, law, moral-
ity, and religion have all their origin in this fact.
In a word, it is in virtue of it that we are free, moral,
social, and responsible beings.

On the other hand, look at the effect which the
absence of this fact has upon the animal creation.
Eeason enters into the creatures there, just as it does
into man, but "not meeting with this fact, it merely
impels them to accomplish their ends under the law
of causality, and then running out, it leaves them
just as it found them. They cannot detain it, or

44 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

profit by its presence, or claim it as their own ;
indeed their reason cannot be their own, because,
wanting this fact, they also necessarily want, and
cannot create for themselves, a personality to which
to refer it. In fine, because the fact of conscious-
ness is not present within them, they continue
for ever to be the mere machines they were born,
without freedom, without morality, without law, and
without responsibility.

Our present limits compel us to be satisfied with
having briefly indicated these consequences, which
result from the fact of consciousness ; but we shall
treat more fully of them hereafter. Our first and
great aim has been to signalise and bring prominently
forward this fact, as kcit egoxw, the psychological
fact, tlie Mcman phenomenon, neglecting the objects
of it, namely, the passions, emotions, and all the
other paraphernalia of " the human mind," which, if
they are psychological facts at all, are so only in a
very secondary and indirect manner. And now, to
round this part of our discussion back to the allegory
with which we commenced it, let us remark, in con-
clusion, that this is the fact, upon an attentive ob-
servation of which our whole safety and success as
philosophers hinge ; and from a neglect of which,
consequences most fatal to our intellectual peace
may ensue. This is that minute and apparently
unimportant fact upon which the most awful and
momentous results are dependent. To pass it by
carelessly (and thus it is too frequently passed by),

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 45

is to mistake the left hand of the magician for the
right, and to bring down upon our heads evils
analogous to those which befell the unfortunate
experimentalist who committed this error. To note
it well is to observe faithfully in which hand the staff
of the magician is held, and to realise glorious con-
sequences similar to those which would have been
the fortune of the young man, had his observations
of the facts connected with his lamp been correct
and complete. Let us, therefore, confine our atten-
tion to this fact, and examine it with care. Thus we
shall be led into extensive fields of novelty and
truth ; and shall escape from the censorious imputa-
tion of the Eoman satirist, who exclaims, in words
that at once point out the true method of psycholo-
gical research, and stigmatise the dreary and intoler-
able mill-round monotony of customary metaphysics,

" Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo !
Sed prsecedenti spectatur mantica tergo."

PART II

CHAPTER I.

We intended at the outset that these papers should
be as little of a controversial character as possible.
But a mature consideration of the state in which
psychology, or the science of man, stands throughout
Europe generally, and in this country in particular,
leads us to deviate considerably from our original
plan. We find, too, that we cannot clear out a way
for the introduction of our own doctrines, without
displacing, or at least endeavouring to displace, to a
very great extent, the opinions usually held on the
subject we are treating of. And, besides all this, we
are sensible that, without having gone far enough, or
completely made good our point, we have yet com-
mitted ourselves so far already in our previous stric-
tures on the prevailing doctrine of " Mind," that
there is no drawing back for us now. We must
either be prepared to corroborate and illustrate our

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 47

argument by many additional explanatory statements,
or to incur the stigma of leaving it very incomplete,
and, as many may think, very inconclusive. In
order, therefore, to escape the latter of these alterna-
tives, we will do our best to embrace and comply
with the former of them. Such being our reasons,
we now nail our colours to the mast, and prepare
ourselves for a good deal of polemical discussion on
the subject of "the human mind." And the first
point to be determined is : What is the exact ques-
tion at issue ?

That man is a creature who displays many mani-
festations of reason, adapting means to the produc-
tion of ends in a vast variety of ways; that he is
also susceptible of a great diversity of sensations,
emotions, passions, &c, which, in one form or another,
keep appearing, disappearing, and reappearing within
him, with few intermissions, during his transit from
the cradle to the grave, is a fact which no one will
dispute. This, then, is admitted equally by the
ordinary metaphysician and by us. Further, the
metaphysician postulates, or lays down, " mind," and
not " body," as the substance in which these pheno-
mena inhere; and this may readily enough be ad-
mitted to him. " Mind," no doubt, is merely an
hypothesis, and violates one of the fundamental
axioms of science, that, namely, which has been
called the principle of philosophical parsimony :
Entia non sunt multiplicanda propter necessitatem.1

1 That is, Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity ; or,

48 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

The necessity in this case has certainly never been
made manifest. Nevertheless the hypothesis may
be admitted, inasmuch as neither the admission nor

in other words, unless it should appear that the phenomena observed
cannot possibly inhere in any already admitted entity. Dugald
Stewart's reasoning on this subject is curious, not because the argu-
ment, or that which it regards, is of the smallest interest or import-
ance in itself, but as exhibiting the grossest misconception of the
question that ever was palmed off upon an unwary reader. "Mat-
ter" must be owned to be the first in the field. We are conversant
and intimate with it long before we know anything about "mind."
When the immaterialist or mentalist, then, comes forward, it is his
business either to displace matter entirely, substituting "mind"
in the place of it ; or else to rear up alongside of it, this, the
antagonist entity for which he contends. If he attempts the former,
he involves himself in a mere play of words. If he maintains that
all the material phenomena are in fact mental phenomena, he does
nothing but quibble. The author of the ' Natural History of En-
thusiasm ' has grievously mistaken the potency of this position.
[See The physical (!) theory of another life, p. 14.] It is plain, we
say, that in this case the immaterialist resolves himself into a mere
innovator upon the ordinary language of men. He merely gives
the name of "mental" to that which other people have chosen to
call "material." The thing remains precisely what it was. If, on
the other hand, he embraces the latter of the alternatives offered to
him, and, without supplanting matter, maintains "mind" to be
co-ordinate with it, then he is bound to show a necessity for his
"multiplication of entities." He is bound to prove that the phe-
nomena witli which he is dealing are incompatible with, or cannot
possibly inhere in, the entity already in the field. But how is such
a proof possible or even conceivable ? Let us see what the imma-
terialist makes of it. It is his object to prove by reasoning that a
certain series of phenomena cannot inhere in a certain admitted
substance "matter," and must therefore be referred to a different
substance "mind." Now all reasoning is either a priori or a pos-
teriori. If he reasons in the former of these ways, he forms a priori
such a conception of matter that it would involve a contradiction
to suppose that the phenomena occasioning the dispute should in-
here in it ; he first of all fixes for himself a notion of matter, as of
something with which certain phenomena are incompatible, some-
thing in which they cannot inhere ; and then from this conception

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 49

the rejection of it is of the smallest conceivable im-
portance. Like Dugald Stewart, we reject the ques-
tion as to the entity in which the admitted pheno-

he deduces the inference that these phenomena are incompatible
with matter, or cannot inhere in it — a petitio principii almost too
glaring to require notice. Or does he reason upon this question a
posteriori t In this case he professes to found upon no a priori
conception of matter, but to be guided entirely by experience. But
experience can only inform us what phenomena do or do not inhere
in any particular substance ; and can tell us nothing about their
abstract compatibility or incompatibility with it. "We may after-
wards infer such compatibility or incompatibility if we please, but
we must first of all know what the fact is, or else we may be ab-
stractly arguing a point one way, while the facts go to establish it
in the opposite way. In reasoning, therefore, from experience, the
question is not, Can certain phenomena inhere in a particular sub-
stance, or can they not ? but we must first of all ask and determine
this : Bo they inhere in it, or do they not ? And this, then, now
comes to be the question with which the immaterialist, reasoning a
posteriori, has to busy himself. Is the negative side of this question
to be admitted to him without proof? Are we to permit him to
take for granted that these phenomena do not inhere in matter ?
Most assuredly not. He must prove this to be the case, or else he
accomplishes nothing ; and yet how is it possible for him to prove it ?
He can only prove it by showing the phenomena to be incompatible
with matter ; for if he once admits the phenomena to be compatible
with matter, then his postulatum of mind is at once disqualified
from being advanced. He has given up the attempt to make mani-
fest that necessity for "mind," which it was incumbent upon hiin
to show.

It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to the very life of his argu-
ment that he should stickle for the incompatibility of these pheno-
mena with matter. To prove that these phenomena do not inhere
in matter, he must show that they cannot inhere in it. This is the
only line of argument which is open to him. But then how is he
to make good this latter point ? We have already seen the inevi-
table and powerless perplexity in which he lands himself in attempt-
ing it. He must, as before, adopt one of two courses. He must
either recur to his old a priori trick of framing for himself, first of
all, such a conception of matter, that it would be contradictory to
suppose the phenomena capable of inhering in it, and then of de-

D

50 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

mena inhere, as altogether unphilosophical ; but he
and we reject it upon very different grounds. He,
indeed, rejected it because he did not consider it at

during their incompatibility or contradictoriness from this concep-
tion— a mode of proof which certainly shows that the phenomena
cannot inhere in his conception of matter, but which by no means
proves that they cannot inhere in matter itself. Or he may fol-
low, as before, an a posteriori course. But here, too, we have
already shown that such a procedure is impossible, without his
taking for granted the very point in dispute. "We have already
shown that, in adhering to experience, the immaterialist must
first of all go and ascertain the fact respecting these pheno-
mena— do they inhere in matter, or do they not — before he is en-
titled to predicate that they cannot inhere in it, lest while he is
steering his argument in one direction, tlie fact should be giving
him the lie in another. We sum up our statement thus : He
wishes to prove that certain phenomena cannot inhere in matter.
In proving this he is brought to postulate the fact that these pheno-
mena do not inhere in matter ; and then, when pressed for a proof
of this latter fact, he can only make it good by reasserting that
they cannot inhere in matter, in support of which he is again forced
to recur to his old statement that they do not inhere in matter, an
instance of circular reasoning of the most perfect kind imaginable.
Thus the immaterialist has not given us, and cannot possibly give
us, any argument at all upon the subject. He has not given us the
proof which the "necessity" of the case called for, and which, in
admitting the principle of parsimony, he pledged himself to give as
the only ground upon which his postulation of a new substance
could be justified. He has, after all, merely supplied us with the
statement that certain phenomena do not inhere in matter, which
is quite sufficiently met on the part of the materialist, by the
counter statement that these phenomena do inhere in matter. In
struggling to supply us with more than this, his reason is strangled
in the trammels of an inexorable petitio prineipii, from which it
cannot shake itself loose : while the materialist looks on perfectly
quiescent. All this, however, Mr Stewart totally misconceives.
He speaks as if the materialist (of course we mean such as under-
stand and represent the argument rightly) took, or were called
upon to take, an active part in this discussion. He imagines
that the onus probandi, the task of proving the phenomena to
inhere in matter, and of disproving "mind," lay upon his shoul-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, 51

all a true psychological question ; and we do the
same. But further than this, we now give, what he
never gave or dreamt of giving, the reason why it

ders. He talks of the "scheme of materialism" ('Elements,' p. 4),
as if the scheme of materialism, supposing that there is one,
did not exist, merely because the scheme of immaterialism can-
not, as we have seen, bring itself into existence. If the im-
materialist cannot (as we have proved he cannot, logically) set
up the entity of mind as a habitation for certain houseless phe-
nomena, will he not permit the materialist charitably to give
them shelter in the existing entity of matter ? Surely this is a
stretch of philosophical intolerance, on the part of the iniinaterial-
ist, not to be endured. He cannot house these phenomena himself,
nor will he permit others to house them. Before concluding this
note, which has already run too far, we may point out to the logical
student another instance of Mr Stewart's vicious logic contained in
the paragraph referred to. We will be short. ' ' Mind and matter, "
says he, ' ' considered as objects of human study, are essentially dif-
ferent," that is, are different in their essence. Now turn to the
last line of this paragraph, and read : " We are totally ignorant of
the essence of either." That is to say, being totally ignorant of the
essence of two things, we are yet authorised in saying that these
two things are essentially different, or different in their essence.
Now, difference being in the opinion of most people the condition
of knowledge, or, in other words, our knowledge of a thing being
based upon the difference observed between it and other things, and
our ignorance of a thing being generally the consequence of its real
or apparent identity with other things, it appears to us that our
ignorance of the essence of these two things (if it did not altogether
disqualify us from speaking) should rather have induced us to say
that they were essentially the same ; or, at any rate, could never
justify us in predicating their essential difference as Mr Stewart
has done. If we know nothing at all about their essence, how can
we either affirm or deny anything with respect to that essence ?

From all that we have here said, it will not be inferred by any
rational thinker that we are a materialist, and just as little that we
are an immaterialist. In point of fact we are neither ; and if the
reader does not understand how this can be, we can only explain
it by repeating that we regard the whole question in itself as silly
and frivolous in the extreme, and only worthy of notice as marking
certain curious windings of thought in the history of logic.

52 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

cannot be viewed as a psychological question ; which
reason is this, that the very phenomena themselves,
inherent, or supposed to be inherent, in this entity,
do not, properly speaking, or otherwise than in the
most indirect manner possible, constitute any part
of the facts of psychology, and therefore any discus-
sion connected with them, or with the subject in
which they may inhere, is a discussion extraneous
and irrelevant to the real and proper science. Fur-
ther, he rejected the question as one which was above
the powers of man : we scout it as one which is im-
measurably beneath them. He refused to acknow-
ledge it because he considered the human faculties
weakly incompetent to it : we scorn it, because,
knowing what the true business and aim of psychol-
ogy is, we consider it miserably incompetent to them.
In short, we pass it by with the most supreme in-
difference. Let the metaphysician, then, retain " the
human mind " if he will, and let him make the most
of it. Let him regard it as the general complement
of all the phenomena alluded to. Let him consider
it their subject of inherence if he pleases, and he will
find that there is no danger of our quarrelling with
him about that. We will even grant it to be a con-
venient generic term expressing the sum-total of the
sensations, passions, intellectual states, &c, by which
the human being is visited.

But the metaphysician does not stop here. He
will not be satisfied with this admission. He goes
much further, and demands a much greater conces-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 53

sion. By " mind " he does not mean merely to ex-
press the aggregate of the " states ; " that is, of the
sensations, feelings, &c., which the human being may
or may not be conscious of ; but, somehow or other,
he blends and intertwines consciousness (or the notion
of self, self-reference) with these " states," and con-
siders this fact as their necessary, essential, invari-
able, or inextricable accompaniment. He thus vests
in mind, besides its own states, passions, sensations,
&c, the fact of the consciousness of these, and the
being to whom that consciousness belongs; thus
constituting " mind " into the man, and making the
one of these terms convertible with the other.

Xow here it is that we beg leave to enter our pro-
test. We object most strongly to this doctrine as
one which introduces into psychology a " confusion
worse confounded ; " as one which, if allowed to pre-
vail, must end in obliterating everything like science,
morality, and even man himself, as far as his true
and peculiar character is concerned ; substituting in
place of him a machine, an automaton, of which the
law of causality composes and regulates the puppet-
strings.

This, then, is the precise point at issue between
us : The metaphysician wishes to make " mind "
constitute and monopolise the whole man ; we refuse
to admit that "mind" constitutes any part of the
true and real man whatsoever. The metaphysician
confounds the consciousness of a "state of mind," and
the being to whom this consciousness belongs, witli

54 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

the " state of mind " itself. Our great object is to
keep these two distinctly and vividly asunder. This
distinction is one which, as shall soon be shown, is
constantly made both by common sense and by com-
mon language, a consideration which throws the
presumption of truth strongly in our favour. It is
one which appears to us to constitute the great lead-
ing principle upon which the whole of psychology
hinges, one without the strict observance of which
any science of ourselves is altogether impossible or
null.

We are still, then, quite willing to vest in " mind "
all the " states " of mind. But the fact of the con-
sciousness of these states, the notion of himself as
the person to whom this consciousness belongs, we
insist in vesting in the man, or in that being who
calls himself " I ; " and in this little word expresses
compendiously all the facts which really and truly
belong to him. The question in dispute, and which
has to be decided between the metaphysician and
ourselves, may be thus worded: He wishes to give
everything unto " mind," while we wish to give unto
mind the things which are mind's, and unto man the
things which are man's. If we can succeed in mak-
ing good our point, psychology will be considerably
lightened — lightened of a useless and unmarketable
cargo which has kept her almost lockfast for many
generations, and which she ought never to have taken
on board; for our very first act will be to fling
" mind " with all its lumber overboard, and, busying

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 55

ourselves exclusively with the man and his facts, we
shall see whether the science will not float them. But
our first problem is to vindicate and make good the
distinction we have pointed out.

Before going further, let us make use of an illus-
tration, which will, perhaps, be of some preliminary
assistance in rendering our meaning, together with
the point at issue, still more distinct and manifest to
the reader. The mountains, let us say, which the
eye beholds are the objects of its vision. In the same
way the passions, sensations, " states of mind," &c,
which the man is, or may be, conscious of, are the
objects of his consciousness, of his conscious self. But
no one ever supposes that the fact of vision is the
same as the objects of vision. The former appertains
to the eye ; the latter constitute the mountains seen.
The objects of vision may exist and do exist without
the fact of vision, and do not create or enforce this
fact as their necessary and invariable accompaniment.
To make no discrimination between these two things
would be confessedly in the highest degree absurd.
It is just the same with regard to the fact of consci-
ousness and the objects of consciousness. The fact
of consciousness belongs to the man himself, to that
being which calls itself "I;" and this, truly speaking,
is all that belongs to him. The objects of conscious-
ness, namely, man's passions, sensations, &c, are not,
properly speaking, his at all. The fact and notion of
self do not necessarily or always accompany them.
They may be referred to "mind," or to what you

56 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

please. They are indeed within the man's control,
and it is his duty to control them. But this is not
because they are himself, but only because they are
not himself ; because they are obscurations of himself.
You may call them the false man if you choose ; but
if they were the true man, where would be the truth-
fulness of that mighty truth which says that the man
waxes just in proportion as he makes his passions
and his sensual feelings wane ? How could this be
the case if the man himself were identical with his
passions and his desires ? Can a creature live and
thrive by suspending its own animation ? Is it con-
ceivable that a being should increase and strengthen
in proportion as it is weakened and diminished ? To
return to our illustration: the point of it is this —
the objects of consciousness, namely, the passions,
emotions, &c, and Eeason itself, might perfectly well
exist (and in animals do exist) without any one being
conscious of them, or combining with them the notion
of self, just as the objects of vision exist without any
eye perceiving them : and the fact of consciousness,
or the fact that a being is conscious of these states,
is just as distinct from the states themselves as the
fact that the eye does behold mountains is distinct
from the mountains which it beholds. These two
things, then, the fact and the object, are in both
cases distinctly separate. In the case of the eye and
its objects they are never confounded; but in the
case of consciousness and its objects we venture to
affirm that the metaphysician has invariably con-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 57

founded them. Our great primary aim is to remedy
this confusion ; to establish the fact of consciousness
(and the being to whom it belongs) as something
quite aloof from, and transcending, the objects of con-
sciousness, namely, mind and all its states, and then
to confine our science entirely to the elucidation of
this fact, which will be found to be pregnant with
many other facts, and with many mighty results,
neglecting the objects of it as of little importance or
of none.

There is one ground, however, still left open to
the metaphysician, which he may consider his im-
pregnable stronghold or inner fortress, and which, if
he can maintain it, will certainly enable him to set
our strictures at defiance, and successfully to defend
his tenets against all our objections. We are quite
willing that he should intrench himself in this strong-
citadel, and, with his permission, we will place him
fairly within it with our own hands, to stand or to
fall. The metaphysician, fully admitting the dis-
tinction we have been insisting on, may say, " But
this discrimination is itself a mere analysis of mind.
The ' state ' of which the being is conscious is mind ;
and the fact of consciousness, with the being to whom
it belongs, is also mind. In a word, both terms or
factors of the analysis are mind. Mind in a state of
dualism perhapa; two minds, if you choose to call
them so ; but still susceptible of synthesis, still cap-
able of having the one of them added to the other of
them ; and hence, though two, still capable of being

58 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

united, and of being viewed in the amalgamation of
one. Therefore," continues he, " mind, view it as you
please, analyse it, or make what discriminations
within it you like, is still rightly to be regarded as
constituting the real and complete man, and as
monopolising the whole of that which is truly he."

If this argument be valid, we must own ourselves
completely foiled, and the fight is done. For if it be
true that the distinction we are contending for be
merely a dead analytical discrimination, and not a
real and wonder-working antithesis, a vital antag-
onism in human nature which, practically operat-
ing, brings about all the good and evil of man and
of society ; and which, working ceaselessly throughout
all time, as well as in the individual breast, increases
in energy the longer it maintains itself, marking
distinctly the progress of the species, and advanc-
ing it on and on from that which it once was to
that which it now is, and to that which it shall
yet be: if it be not, we say, a distinction of this
kind, but merely an inoperative " analysis of mind,"
then we give it up as virtually void, as altogether
insignificant, and unworthy of a further thought.

But our whole system proceeds upon the reality
and vitality of this distinction. It founds itself not
upon any principle arising out of an analysis of
mind ; not upon any distinction made vjithin mind ;
but upon a real antithesis to be established between
what belongs, or may be admitted to belong to mind,
and what does not and cannot belong to it; and

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 59

therefore we will not yield up this distinction by
owning it to be analytical at all. We allow the
metaphysician to take all man's passions, sensations,
emotions, states, or whatever else he may choose to
call them, and refer them to "mind," making this
the object of his research. But when he attempts to
lay hands on the fact of consciousness, and to make
" mind " usurp this fact together with the being to
whom this fact belongs, we exclaim, " Hold ! hitherto
shalt thou come, and no farther ; here shall thy weak
hypothesis be stayed." If he resists, the question
must be put to the proof. Can the fact of conscious-
ness, together with the man himself, be conceived of
as vested in the object called " mind," as well as the
sensations, passions, &c, which have been admitted
to be vested therein ? or must not this fact and the
man himself be held transcendent to this object, and
incapable of being objectified, or conceived of as an
object at all ? Unless we can make out this latter
point, we shall fail in realising, in its truth and
purity, the only fact with which, in our opinion, as
we have already said, psychology ought to busy
itself, namely, the fact of consciousness.

We have now, then, brought the question to its
narrowest possible point. Can the fact of conscious-
ness, together with our conscious selves, be conceived
of as vested in the object called " the human mind " ?
It was to prove the negative side of this question,
and thereby to support a conclusion which forms
the very life and keystone of our system, that the

60 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

argument contained in a former part of this discus-
sion was intended ; and the reader may, perhaps, be
now placed in a situation which will enable him to
perceive its drift more clearly. We will recapitulate
it very shortly, and in somewhat different words
from those formerly used.

An object is that which is either really or ideally
different from ourselves ; or in other words, is either
different in itself, or is conceived of as different by
us. Suppose, now, that the metaphysician makes
use of the expression of common sense and ordinary
language, ".my mind." He here certainly appears,
at first sight, to lay down a real discrimination be-
tween himself and his mind. Whatever he may
intend to say, he clearly says that there are two of
them, namely, his mind and himself, the " I " (call
it the ego), possessing it. In this case, " mind " may
contain what it likes, but the consciousness of what
it contains certainly remains with the ego. In this
case mind is really destitute of consciousness. Does
the metaphysician disclaim this view of the matter ?
Does he say that mind is really himself, and is only
ideally an object to him. Then we answer, that in
this case mind is ideally divested of consciousness,
and if the metaphysician thinks otherwise, he im-
poses upon himself. For how can he make it con-
tain consciousness without first of all ideally replac-
ing within it himself, the ego which he had ideally
severed from it. But if he does make this reinvest-
ment, mind (his object) at once vanishes from the

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 61

scene; for none of us can attribute consciousness
directly to another ; we can only attribute it directly
to another by becoming it, and if we become it, it
ceases to be another ; it becomes we, that is to say,
nothing but the ego is left, and we have no object
either ideally or really before us. The dilemma to
which the philosophers of mind are reduced is this :
unless they attribute consciousness to mind, they
leave out of view the most important and character-
istic phenomenon of man ; and if they attribute con-
sciousness to mind, they annihilate the object of their
research, in so far as the whole extent of this fact is
concerned.

So much in the shape of mere abstract reasoning
upon this question. It appears to us that our point
is now in a fair way of being completely made out.
We think that, as far as mere reasoning can do it, we
have succeeded in extricating the fact of conscious-
ness from the oppressive and obscuring envelopment
of " the human mind." But our views, their correct-
ness, and their application, still require to be brought
out and enforced by many explanations and obser-
vations of fact. We now, then, descend to various
statements, illustrations, and practical considerations
which will probably be still more plain and convinc-
ing than anything we have yet said. These, how-
ever, we reserve for the following chapter.

62 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTEE II.

One of the fundamental and soundest canons of phi-
losophy is this: never violently to subvert, but to
follow gently through all its windings, any fact sub-
mitted to us by common sense, and never harshly to
obliterate the language in which any such fact is
expressed, or precipitately to substitute in place of it
another expression drawn probably from some mush-
room theory, and more consonant, as we may think,
with truth, because apparently of a more cultivated
cast. The presumption is, that the first expressions
are right, and truly denote the fact; and that the
secondary language, if much opposed to these, is the
offspring of a philosophy erroneously reflective. In
short, if we neglect the canon pointed out, the risk
of our missing the real facts and ' running into false
speculation is extreme. For common sense, being-
instinctive or nearly so, rarely errs ; and its expres-
sions, not being matured by reflection, generally con-
tain within them, though under very obscure forms,
much of the deep truth and wisdom of revelations.
What though its facts and its language may often be

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 63

to us, like the mirage to travellers in the desert, for
a time an illusive and disappointing thing ? Still let
us persevere in the pursuit. The natural mirage is
often the most benign provision which Heaven, in its
mercy, could call up before the eyes of the wanderers
through barren wastes. Ceaselessly holding out to
them the promise of blessed gratification, it thus
attracts onwards and onwards, till at length they
really reach the true and water-flowing oasis, those
steps which, but for this timely and continual attrac-
tion, would have sunk down and perished in despair
amid the immeasurable sands. And spread over
the surface of common life there is a moral mirage
analogous to this, and equally attractive to the philo-
sopher thirsting after truth. In pursuing it we may
be often disappointed and at fault, but let us follow
it in faithful hope, and it will lead us on and on unto
the true and living waters at last. If we accept in a
sincere and faithful spirit the facts and expressions
of common sense, and refrain from tampering unduly
with their simplicity, we shall perhaps find, like those
fortunate ones of old who, opening hospitable doors
to poor wearied wayfarers, unwittingly entertained
angels, that we are harbouring the divinest truths of
philosophy in the guise of these homely symbols.

It is comparatively an easy task to exclude such
facts and such expressions from our consideration,
and then within closed doors to arrive at conclusions
at variance with common sense. But this is not the
true business of philosophy. True philosophy, medi-

64 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

tating a far higher aim and a far more difficult task
than this, throws wide her portals to the entrance of
all comers, come disguised and unpromising as they
may. In other words, she accepts, as given, the
great and indestructible convictions of our race, and
the language in which these are expressed: and in
place of denying or obliterating them, she endeavours
rationally to explain and justify them ; recovering by
reflection steps taken in the spontaneous strength of
nature by powers little more than instinctive, and see-
ing in clear light the operation of principles which,
in their primary acts, work in almost total darkness.
Common sense, then, is the problem of philosophy,
and is plainly not to be solved by being set aside,
but just as little is it to be solved by being taken for
granted, or in other words, by being allowed to re-
main in the primary forms in which it is presented to
our notice. A problem and its solution are evidently
not one and the same thing; and hence, common
sense, the problem of philosophy, is by no means
identical, in the first instance at least, with the solu-
tion which philosophy has to supply (a consideration
which those would do well to remember who talk of
the " philosophy of common sense," thus confounding
together the problem and the solution). It is only
after the solution has been effected that they can be
looked upon as identical with each other. How then
is this solution to be realised ? How is the conver-
sion of common sense into philosophy to be brought
about? We answer, by accepting completely and

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 65

faithfully the facts and expressions of common sense
as given in their primitive obscurity, and then by
construing them without violence, without addition,
and without diminution into clearer and more intel-
ligible forms.

In observance and exemplification, then, of this
rule, let us now take up an expression frequently
made use of by common sense, and which, in the
preceding chapter, we had occasion to bring forward,
that expression, to wit, constantly in the mouth of
every one, " my mind," or let it be " my emotion,"
" my sensation," or any similar mode of speech ; and
let us ask, What does a man, thus talking the ordin-
ary language of common life, precisely mean when he
employs these expressions ? The metaphysician will
tell us that he does not mean what he says. We
affirm that he does mean what he says. The meta-
physician will tell us that he does not really make,
or intend to make, any discrimination or sundering
between himself and his " mind ; " or we should rather
say his " state of mind." We affirm that he both in-
tends to make such a separation, and does make it.
The metaphysician declares that by the expression
" my emotion " the man merely means that there is
one of them, namely, " emotion," that this is himself
(the being he calls " I"), and contains and expresses
every fact which this latter word denotes; and in
making this averment the metaphysician roughly
subverts and obliterates the language of the man.
We, however, reverencing the canon we have just laid

E

66 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

down, refrain from doing this gross violence to his
expressions, because, if we were guilty of it, we should
consider ourselves upon the point of falling into great
errors, and of confounding a most essential distinction
which has not escaped the primitive and almost in-
stinctive good sense of all mankind, the genus meta-
physicorum excepted. This tribe will not admit that
in using the expression, for instance, " my sensations,"
the man regards himself as standing aloof from his
sensations : or at any rate they hold that such a view
on the part of the man is an erroneous one. They
will not allow that the man himself and the fact of
consciousness stand on the outside of the sphere of
the "states of mind" experienced: but they fetter
him down within the circle of these states, and make
him and consciousness identical with them.

In opposition to this, the ordinary psychological
doctrine, we, for our part, prefer to adhere to the lan-
guage of common sense; believing that this repre-
sents the facts faithfully and truly, while the formulas
of metaphysics misrepresent them grievously. We
affirm that the natural man, in using the words " my
mind," expresses and intends to express what is, and
what he feels to be, the fact — namely, that his con-
scious self, that which he calls " I " (ego), is not to
be confounded, and cannot be confounded, with his
" mind," or the " states of mind," which are its objects.
Let us observe, he merely views " mind," and uses
this word, as a term expressing the aggregate or
general assemblage of these states, and connects with

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 67

it no hypothesis respecting its substance. On the
other hand, to the ego he never thinks of applying
the epithet " my." And why not ? Simply because
it is he ; and if mind also was he, he never would
dream of applying the word " my" to it either. The
ego is he, not something which he possesses. He
therefore never attempts to ohjectify it, because it
will not admit of this. But he can talk rightly and
intelligibly of " my sensations ; " that is to say, he can
tell us that this ego is visited by various sensations,
because he feels that the ego, that is, himself, is
different from these sensations. At any rate, he
never, of his own accord, confounds himself and his
sensations or states of mind together. He never, in
Lis natural state, uses the word " mind " as convertible
dth the word " I ; " and if he did so, he would not be
Ltelligible to his species. They would never know
iat he meant himself ; and simply for this reason,
lat the fact of self -reference or consciousness is not
>ntained or expressed in the word " mind," and can-
tot, indeed, be denoted by any word in the third
person. It has been reserved for the " metaphysics
)f mind" to introduce into thought and language a
mfusion which man's natural understanding has
ilways steered clear of.
We have found, then, that this distinction between
le man himself (that called ego) and the states of
tind which he is conscious of, obtains in the language
of common sense, and we do not feel ourselves en-
titled to subvert or to neglect it. But to leave it

68 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

precisely as we found it, would be to turn it to no
account whatsoever, and would allow the metaphy-
sician still to triumph in our failure to accomplish
what we have declared to be the true end and busi-
ness of philosophy. The distinction is espoused by
common sense, and is thrown out on the very surface
of ordinary language : therefore the presumption that
it is correct is in its favour ; but it still remains to be
philosophically vindicated and made good. Let us,
then, accept it faithfully as given ; and gently con-
struing it into a clearer form, let us see whether every
fact connected with it under its philosophic aspect
will not prove it to be the most important and valid
of all possible discriminations.

To mark this distinction, this conviction and ex-
pression of common sense, by a philosophical for-
mula, let us suppose a line terminating in two
opposite poles. In the one of these we will vest
" mind," that is, the whole assemblage of the various
states or changes experienced — all the feelings, pas-
sions, sensations, &c, of man; and in the other of
them we will vest the fact of consciousness, and the
man himself calling himself " I." Now we admit,
in the first instance, that these two poles are mere
postulates, and that our postulation of them can only
be justified and made good that they are mutually
repulsive; by the fact that there is a reciprocal
antithesis or antagonism between them, and between
all that each of them contains : or, in other words,
we must be borne out by the fact, that an increase of

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 69

intensity at the one pole is always compensated by a
corresponding decrease of intensity at the other pole,
and vice versa. For if, on the contrary, it should
appear that these two poles agree and act so harmo-
niously together, that the vividness experienced at
the one pole (say that in which sensation, &c, reside)
is answered by a proportional vividness at the oppo-
site pole of consciousness ; and that a depression at
this latter pole again takes place in accordance with
a diminished intensity at the former pole : in short,
if it should appear that these two poles, instead of
mutually extinguishing, mutually strengthen each
other's light, then we must own that the antithesis
we are endeavouring to establish is virtually void
and erroneous ; that sensation and consciousness are
really identical, and that the two poles are in fact
not two, but only one. In a word, we will own that
the distinction we have been all along fighting for
does not exist, and that the ordinary doctrine of
psychology upon this head is faultless, and beyond
dispute.

This point, however, is not to be settled by specu-
lation, or by abstract reasoning. What says the fact ?
The fact is notorious to every one except metaphysi-
cians, who have seldom paid much attention to this
or any other fact, that the degree of our conscious-
ness or self-reference always exists in an inverse
ratio to the degree of intensity of any of our sensa-
tions, passions, emotions, &c. ; and that consciousness
is never so effectually depressed, or, perhaps, we

70 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

may say, never so totally obliterated within us, as
when we are highly transported by the vividness of
any sensation, or absorbed in the violence of any
passion. While, on the other hand, returning con-
sciousness, or increasing self-reference, has always
the effect of deadening the sensation and suspending
the passion, until at length, when it reaches its ulti-
matum, the sensation or passion becomes totally ex-
tinct. This is decidedly the fact, and there is no
denying it. Look at a human being immersed in
the swinish gratifications of sense. See here how
completely the man is lost in the animal. Swallowed
up in the pleasurable sensations of his palate, he is
oblivious of everything else, and consciousness sinks
into abeyance for a time. The sensation at the one
pole monopolises him, and therefore the conscious-
ness at the other pole does not come into play. He
does not think of himself ; he does not combine the
notion of himself with the sensation, the enjoyment
of which is enslaving him. Again, look at another
man shaken by wrath, as a tree is shaken by the
wind. Here, too, the passion reigns paramount, and
everything else is forgotten. Consciousness is ex-
tinguished; and hence the expression of the poet,
Ira brevis furor est — "Eage is a brief insanity" —
is strictly and pathologically true ; because con-
sciousness, the condition upon which all sanity
depends, is for the time absent from the man.
Hence, too, the ordinary phrase, that rage transports

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 71

a man out of himself, is closely and philosophically
correct. Properly interpreted, it means that the
man is taken completely out of the pole where con-
sciousness abides, and vested entirely in the opposite
pole where passion dwells ; or rather we should say
that as a man he is extinct, and lives only as a
machine. In both of these cases the men lose their
personality. They are played upon by a foreign
agency.

" Infortunati nimium sua si mala norint ! "

But as yet they know not how mean and how
miserable they are. Consciousness must return to
them first, and only they themselves can bring it
back ; and when it does return, the effect of its very
first approach is to lower the temperature of the
sensation and of the passion. The men are not now
wholly absorbed in the state that prevailed at the
sensual and passionate pole. The balance is begin-
ning to right itself. They have originated an act of
their own, which has given them some degree of
freedom; and they now begin to look down upon
their former state as upon a state of intolerable
slavery ; and ever as this self -reference of theirs
waxes, they look down upon that state as more and
more slavish still, until at length, the balance being
completely reversed and lying over on the other side,
consciousness is again enthroned, the passion and the
sensation are extinguished, and the men feel them-
selves to be completely free.

72 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

The first general expression, then, of this great law
(which, however, may require much minute attention
to calculate all its subordinate forces and their pre-
cise balances) is this: When passion, or any state
of mind at the one pole, is at its maximum, con-
sciousness is at its minimum, this maximum being
sometimes so great as absolutely to extinguish con-
sciousness while it continues ; and, vice versa, when
consciousness is at its maximum, the passion, or
whatever the state of mind at the opposite pole may
be, is at its minimum, the maximum being in this
case, too, sometimes so great as to amount to a total
suspension of the passion, &c. What important con-
sequences does the mere enunciation of this great law
suggest ! In particular, what a firm and intelligible
basis does it afford to the great superstructure of
morality ! What light does it carry down into the
profoundest recesses of duty ! Man's passions may
be said to be the origin of all human wickedness.
What more important fact, then, can there be than
this, that the very act of consciousness, simple as it
may seem, brings along with it, to a considerable
extent, the suspension of any passion which may be
tyrannising over us ; and that, as the origination of
this act is our own, so is it in our own power to
heighten and increase its lustre as we please, even
up to the highest degree of self-reflection, where it
triumphs over passion completely ? These matters,
however, shall be more fully unfolded when we come

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 73

to speak of the consequences of the fact of conscious-

ness.-

1 Dr Chalmers has a long chapter in his Moral Philosophy (Chap.
II.) on the effect which consciousness has in obliterating the state
of mind upon which it turns its eye. But to what account does he
turn his observation of this fact ? He merely notices it as attach-
ing a, peculiar difficulty to the study of the phenomena of mind. It
does indeed. It attaches so peculiar a difficulty to the study of
these phenomena, that we wonder the Doctor was not led by this
consideration to perceive that these phenomena were no longer the
real and important facts of the science ; but that the fact of con-
sciousness, together with the consequences it brought along with
it, and nothing else, truly was so. Again, on the other hand, this
fact attaches so peculiar a facility to the study of morality, that
we are surprised the Doctor did not avail himself of its assistance
in explaining the laws and character of duty. But how does Dr
Chalmers "get quit of this difficulty"? If the phenomena of
mind disappear as soon as consciousness looks at them, how do
you think he obviates the obstacle in the way of science ? Why,
by emptying human nature of consciousness altogether ; or, as he
informs us, "by adopting Dr Thomas Brown's view of conscious-
ness, who makes this act to be," as Dr Chalmers says, "a brief
act of memory. " Whether this means that consciousness is a short
act of memory, or an act of memory following shortly after the
: state " remembered, we are at a loss to say ; but, at any rate, we
here have consciousness converted into memory. For we presume
that there is no difference in kind, no distinction at all between an
act of memory which is brief, and an act of memory which is not
brief. Thus consciousness is obliterated. Man is deprived of the
notion of himself. He no longer is a self at all, or capable of any
self-reference. From having been a person, he becomes a mere
thing ; and is left existing and going through various acts of intel-
ligence, just like the animals around him, which exist and perform
many intelligent acts without being aware of their existence, with-
out possessing any personality, or taking any account to themselves
of their accomplishments.

74 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTER III.

What then is the precise effect of our argument
against the prevailing doctrine of the " human
mind " ? If the word " mind " be used merely to
express the general group or assemblage of passions,
emotions, intellectual states, and other modifications
of being, which both man and the animal creation
are subject to, we have no objections whatever to the
use of the term. If it should further please the
metaphysician to lay down "mind" as a distinct
entity to which these various states or changes are
to be referred, we shall not trouble ourselves with
quarrelling with this hypothesis either. All we say
is, that the man himself, and the true and proper
facts of the man's nature, are not to be found here.
In the case of animals, we shall admit that " mind,"
that is, some particular modification of passion,
sensation, reason, and so forth, constitutes, and is
convertible while it lasts with the true and proper
being of the animal subject to that change ; because
here there is nothing over and above the ruling pas-
sion of the time. There is no distinction made be-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 75

tween it (the state) experienced, and itself (the ani-
mal) experiencing. The animal is wholly monopo-
lised by the passion. The two are identical. The
animal does not stand aloof in any degree from the
influence to which it is subject. There is not in
addition to the passion, or whatever the state of
mind may be, a consciousness or reference to self of
that particular state. In short, there is no self at
all in the case. There is nothing but a machine, or
thing agitated and usurped by a kind of tyrannous
agency, just as a reed is shaken by the wind. The
study, then, of the laws and facts of passion, sensa-
tion, reason, &c, in animals might be a rational and
legitimate enough pursuit ; because, in their case,
there is no fact of a more important and peculiar
character for us to attend to. These phenomena
might be said to constitute the proper facts of ani-
mal psychology.

The total absorption of the creature in the particu-
lar change or " state " experienced, which we have just
noticed as the great fact occurring in the animal crea-
tion, sometimes occurs in the case of man also ; and
when it does take place in him, he and they are to be
considered exactly upon a par. But it is the charac-
teristic peculiarity of man's nature that this mono-
polisation of him by some prevailing " state of mind "
does not always, or indeed often, happen. In his
case there is generally something over and above
the change by which he is visited, and this unab-
sorbed something is the fact of consciousness, the

76 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

notion and the reality of himself as the person expe-
riencing the change. This fact is that which con-
trols and makes him independent of the state expe-
rienced ; and in the event of the state running into
excess, it leaves him not the excuse or apology
(which animals have) that he was its victim and its
slave. This phenomenon stands conspicuously aloof,
and beside it stands man conspicuously aloof from
all the various modifications of being by which he
may be visited. This phenomenon is the great and
leading fact of human psychology. And we now
affirm that the inquirer who should neglect it after
it had been brought up before him, and should still
keep studying " the human mind," would be guilty
of the grossest dereliction of his duty as a philoso-
pher, and would follow a course altogether irrele-
vant; inasmuch as, passing by the phenomenon
peculiar to man, he would be busying himself at the
best (supposing " mind " to be something more than
hypothesis) with facts which man possesses in com-
mon with other creatures, and which must of course
be, therefore, far inferior in importance and scientific
value to the anomalous fact exclusively his. In study-
ing " the human mind," we encounter, whichever
way we turn, mere counterfeit, or else irrelevant
phenomena, instead of falling in with the true and
peculiar phenomena of man; or shall we say that
consciousness, like the apples in the gardens of the
Hesperides, grows on the boughs of humanity, and
grows nowhere else, and that while it is the practical

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 77

duty of all men, as well as the great aim of philo-
sophy, to grasp and realise this rare and precious
fact, it has ever been the practice of "the human
mind," like the dragon of old, to guard this pheno-
mena from the scrutiny of mankind ; to keep them
ignorant or oblivious of its existence ; to beat them
back from its avenues into the mazes of practical as
well as speculative error, by raising its blinding and
deceitful aspect against any hand that would pluck
the golden fruitage.

Does the reader still desire to be informed with
the most precise distinctness why the fact of con-
sciousness, and we ourselves, cannot be conceived of
as properly and entirely vested in " mind " ? Then
let him attend once more to the fact, when we repeat
what we have already stated : perilling our whole
doctrine upon the truth of our statement as fact, and
renouncing speculation altogether. In a former part
of this discussion we illustrated the distinction be-
tween the objects of consciousness (the passions,
namely, and all the other changes or modifications
we experience) and the fact of consciousness, by the
analogous distinction subsisting between the objects
of vision and the fact of vision. It was plain that
the objects of vision might exist, and did exist,
without giving birth to, or being in any way accom-
panied by, the fact of vision ; and in the same way
it was apparent that the objects of consciousness by
no means brought along with them the fact of con-
sciousness as their necessary and invariable accom-

"78 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

paniment. But we have now to observe that this
illustration is not strong enough, and that the two
terms of it are not sufficiently contrasted for our
purpose. Or, in other words, we now remark that
in the case of consciousness and its objects, the rup-
ture or antagonism between the two is far stronger
and more striking than in the case of vision and its
objects. It is not the tendency of the objects of
vision, on the one hand, to quench the vision which
regards them ; it is not, on the other hand, the ten-
dency of the fact of vision to obliterate the objects
at which it looks. Therefore, though the fact of
vision and the objects of vision are distinctly separ-
ate, yet their disunion is not so complete as that
of the fact of consciousness and the objects of con-
sciousness, the natural tendency of which is, on both
sides, to act precisely in the manner spoken of, and
between which a struggle of the kind pointed out
constantly subsists. This, then, we proclaim to be
the fact (and upon this fact we ground the essential
distinction or antithesis between mind, i.e., the com-
plement of the objects of consciousness, and the fact
of consciousness itself), that mind, in all its states,
without a single exception, so far from facilitating or
bringing about the development of consciousness,
actually exerts itself unceasingly and powerfully to
prevent consciousness from coming into existence,
and to extinguish it when it has come into operation.
The fact, as we have said before, is notorious, that
the more any state of mind (a sensation or whatever

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 79

else it may be) is developed, the less is there a con-
sciousness or reference to self of that state of mind ;
and this fact proves how essentially the two are op-
posed to each other ; because if they agreed, or acted
in concert with one another, it would necessarily
follow that an increase in the one of them would be
attended by a corresponding increase in the other of
them. How, then, can we possibly include, or con-
ceive of as included, under " mind," a fact or act
which it is the tendency of " mind " in all its states
to suppress ?

Is it here objected that unless these states of mind
existed, consciousness would never come into opera-
tion, and that therefore it falls to be considered as
dependent upon them ? In this objection the pre-
mises are perfectly true, but the inference is alto-
gether false. It is true that man's consciousness
would not develop itself unless certain varieties of
sensation, reason, &c, became manifest within him ;
but it does not by any means follow from this that
consciousness is the natural sequent or harmonious
accompaniment of these. The fact is, that con-
sciousness does not come into operation in .conse-
quence of these states, but in spite of them : it does
not come into play to increase and foster these states,
but only actively to suspend, control, or put a stop
to them. This, then, is the reason why conscious-
ness cannot develop itself without their previous
manifestation ; namely, because unless they existed
there would be nothing for it to combat, to weaken,

80 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

or to destroy. Its occupation or office would be
gone. There would be nothing for it to exert it-
self against. Its antagonist force not having been
given, there would be no occasion for its existence.
This force (the power existing at what we have
called the mental pole) does not create conscious-
ness, but as soon as this force comes into play, con-
sciousness creates itself, and, by creating itself, sus-
pends or diminishes the energy existing at that pole.
This fact, showing that consciousness is in nothing
passive, but is ab wigine essentially active, places us
upon the strongest position which, as philosophers
fighting for human freedom, we can possibly occupy ;
and it is only by the maintenance of this position
that man's liberty can ever be philosophically vindi-
cated and made good. In truth, possessing this fact,
we hold in our hands the profoundest truth in all
psychology, the most awful and sublime truth con-
nected with the nature of man. Our present men-
tion of it is necessarily very brief and obscure: but
we will do our best to clear it up and expound it
fully when we come to discuss the problem : Hovj
does consciousness come into operation ? We will
then start man free. We will show that he brings
himself into existence, not indeed as a being, but as
a human being ; not as an existence, but as an exist-
ence calling itself " I," by an act of absolute and
essential freedom. We will empty his true and real
being of all passivity whatsoever, in opposition to
those doctrines of a false, inert, and contradictory

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 81

philosophy, which, making him at first, and in his
earliest stage, the passive recipient of the natural
effluences of tilings, the involuntary effect of some
foreign cause, seeks afterwards to engraft freedom
upon him; a vain, impracticable, and necessarily
unsuccessful endeavour, as the whole history of
philosophy, from first to last, has shown.

We are now able to render a distinct answer to the
question : What is the precise effect of our argument
on the subject of the human mind ? Its precise
effect and bearing is to turn us to the study of fact —
of a clear and a peculiar fact — from the contempla-
tion of an object which is either an hypothesis, or else
no object at all (not even an hypothesis but a contra-
diction), or else an irrelevant object of research, and
one which cannot by any conceivability contain the
fact which it is our business to investigate. Even
granting the human mind to be a real object, still we
affirm that our argument, and the state of the fact,
show the necessity of our realising and viewing con-
sciousness as something altogether distinct from and
independent of it, inasmuch as it is the tendency of
every modification of mind to keep this fact or act
in abeyance under their supremacy so long as that
supremacy continues ; and, therefore, it never can be
the true and relevant business of philosophy to attend
to this object (however real) when engaged in the
study of man ; because in doing so, philosophy would
necessarily miss and overlook the leading, proper,
and peculiar phenomenon of his being. The fact of

F

82 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

consciousness, expressed in the word "I," and its
accompanying facts, such as the direct and vital
antithesis subsisting between it and passion, sensa-
tion, &c, these are the only facts which psychology
ought to regard. This science ought to discard from
its direct consideration every fact which is not pecu-
liarly man's. It ought to turn away its attention
from the facts subsisting at what we have called the
sensitive, passionate, and rational pole of humanity ;
because these facts are not, properly speaking, the
true and absolute property of humanity at all ; and
it ought to confine its regards exclusively to the pole
in which consciousness is vested; and, above all
things, it ought to have nothing to do with specula-
tions concerning any transcendent substance (mind,
for instance) in which these phenomena may be
imagined to inhere.

Let us conclude this chapter by shortly summing
up our whole argument and its results, dividing our
conclusions into two distinct heads : 1st, concerning
the " science of the human mind ; " and 2d, concern-
ing the " human mind " itself.

In the first place, does the science of the human
mind profess to follow the analogy of the natural
sciences ? It does. Then it must conform itself to
the conditions upon which they depend. Now, the
primary condition upon which the natural sciences
depend and proceed, is the distinction between a
subject and an object ; or, in other words, between a
Being inquiring, and a Being inquired into. With-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 83

out such a discrimination they could not move a step.
Very well: man in studying himself follows the
same method. He divides himself into subject and
object. There is himself, the subject inquiring, and
there is " the human mind," the object inquired into.
There is here then, at the outset, distinctly two. The
principal condition of the inquiry demands that there
shall be two. "We will suppose then the science of
the "object inquired into" to be complete. And
now we turn to the man, and say, " Give us a science
of the subject inquiring" He answers that he has
already done so ; that, in this case, the subject and
object are identical ; and in saying this is it not plain
that he violates the very condition upon which his
science professed to proceed and to depend, namely,
the distinction between subject and object ? He now
gives up this distinction. He confounds the two
together. He makes one of them: and the total
confusion and obliteration of his science is the con-
sequence. Does he again recur to the distinction ?
then we keep probing him with one or other horn
of our dilemma, which we will thus express for the
behoof of the "philosophers of mind." Do you, in
your science of man, profess to lay down and to
found upon the distinction between the subject (your-
selves) and the object (the human mind), or do you
not ? If you do, then we affirm that while studying
the object you necessarily keep back in the subject
the most important fact connected with man, namely,
the fact of consciousness ; and that you cannot place

84 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

this fact in the object of your research without doing
away the distinction upon which you founded. But
if you do away this distinction, you renounce and
disregard the vital and indispensable condition upon
which physical science depends : and what, then, be-
comes of your science as a research conducted, as you
profess it to be, upon the principles of physical in-
vestigation ? You may, indeed, still endeavour to
accommodate your research to the spirit of physical
inquiry by talking of a subject-object ; but this is a
wretched subterfuge, and the word you here make
use of must ever carry a contradiction upon its very
front. You talk of what is just as inconceivable to
physical science as a square circle or a circular
square. By " subject," physical science understands
that which is not an " object," but something opposed
to an object, and by "object," that which is not a
" subject," but something opposed to a subject : and
can form no conception of these two as identical.
But by " subject-object " you mean a subject which
becomes an object — i.e., its own object. But this is
inconceivable, or, at any rate, is only conceivable on
this ground, that the subject keeps back in itself, itself
and the consciousness of what is passing in the object;
because if it invests itself, and the fact of conscious-
ness in the object, the object from that moment
ceases to be an object, and becomes reconverted into
a subject, that is, into one's self without an object.
This, at least, is quite plain: that in talking of a
subject-object, you abandon the essential distinction

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 85

upon which the physical sciences found: and the
ruin of your science as a physical research (that is,
as a legitimate research in the only sense in which
you have declared a research can be legitimate) is the
result.

The difficulties, then, in the way of the establish-
ment of a science of " the human mind," are insuper-
able. Its weakness and futility are of a twofold
character. It starts with an hypothesis, and yet can-
not maintain this hypothesis, or remain consistent
with it for a single moment. Man makes a hypo-
thetical object of himself, and calls this " the human
mind ; " and then, in order to invest it with a certain
essential phenomenon, he is compelled every instant
to unmake it as an object, and to convert back again
into a subject, that is, into himself — a confusion of
the most perplexing kind — a confusion which, so
long as it is persisted in, must render everything
like a science of man altogether hopeless. Such
being the state of things, it is indeed no wonder that
despair should have settled down upon the present
condition, the prospect, and the retrospect of psycho-
logical research.

In the second place, let us say one or two words
on the subject of " the human mind " itself, before we
have done with it. Let us suppose it to be not an
hypothesis, but a reality. We will further suppose
that all the forms, states, or modifications of this
real substance have been separately enumerated and
classified in distinct orders ; and now we will imagine

86 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

the question put, Would not a science of this kind,
and of this substance, be still worth something?
Would it not, in fact, be the true science of human
nature ? We answer, No. Whatever might be its
value in other respects, we aver that, as a science of
man, it would be altogether worthless and false. And
for this reason, because the object of our research
here not only does not contain the proper and pecul-
iar fact of man, namely, the fact of consciousness,
but it contains, as we have seen, an order of phe-
nomena which tend unceasingly to overcloud, keep
down, and extinguish this fact. In studying this
object, therefore, with the view of constructing a
science of man out of our examination of it, we
should be following a course doubly vicious and
misleading. We should not only be studying facts
among which consciousness is not to be found, but
we should be studying and attaching a scientific
value to facts — esteeming them, too, to be character-
istic of man's proper nature, facts which actually
rise up as obstacles to prevent consciousness (that is,
his proper nature and peculiar fact) from coming into
manifestation. If, then, we would establish a true
science of man, there is no other course open to us
than this, to abandon, in the first instance, every
consideration of " the human mind," whether it be an
hypothesis and a reality, together with all its phe-
nomena, and then to confine our attention closely
and devoutly to the examination of the great and
anomalous fact of human consciousness.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 87

And truly this fact is well worthy of our regard,
and one which will worthily reward our pains. It is
a fact of most surpassing wonder ; a fact prolific in
sublime results. Standing aloof as much as possible
from our acquired and inveterate habits of thought ;
divesting ourselves as much as possible of our natural
prepossessions, and of that familiarity which has
blunted the edge of astonishment, let us consider
rhat we know to be the fact ; namely, that existence,
>mbined with intelligence and passion in many in-
stances, but unaccompanied by any other fact, is the
general rule of creation. Knowing this, would it not
but an easy step for us to conclude that it is also
Le universal rule of creation ? and would not such a
inclusion be a step naturally taken ? Finding this,
id nothing more than this, to be the great fact " in
leaven and on earth, and in the waters under the
irth," would it not be rational to conclude that it
idmitted of no exception ? Such, certainly, would
the natural inference, and in it there would be
tothing at all surprising. But suppose that when it
ras on the point of being drawn, there suddenly, and
for the first time, started up in a single Being, a fact
it variance with tins whole analogy of creation, and
mtradicting this otherwise universal rule ; we ask,
rould not this be a fact attractive and wonderful in-
leed ? "Would not every attempt to bring this Being
ider the great general rule of the universe be at
>nce, and most properly, abandoned ? Would not
new fact be held exclusively worthy of scientific

88 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

consideration, as the feature which distinguished its
possessor with the utmost clearness from all other
creatures, and as that which would be sure to lead
the observer to a knowledge of the true and essential
character of the being manifesting it ? Would not,
in fine, a world entirely new be here opened up to
research ? And now, if we would really behold such
a fact, we have but to turn to ourselves, and ponder
over the fact of consciousness; for consciousness is
precisely that marvellous, that unexampled fact which
we have been here supposing and shadowing forth.

" I never could content my contemplation," says
Sir Thomas Browne, " with those general pieces of
wonder, the flux and reflux of the sea, the increase of
the Mle, the conversion of the needle to the north,
and have studied to match and parallel those in the
more obvious and neglected pieces of nature which,
without farther travel, I can do, in the cosmography
of myself . We carry with us the wonders we seek
without us. There is all Africa and her prodigies in
us. We are that bold and adventurous piece of nature,
which he that studies wisely learns in a compendium,
what others labour at in a divided piece or endless
volume." * Let us observe, however, that in studying
man it is our duty, as philosophers, and if we would
perceive and understand his real wonders, to study
him in his sound and normal state, and not in any of
the eccentricities or aberrations of his nature. Next
to physiological metaphysics, pathological meta-
1 'Religio Medici,' § 15.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 89

physics, or the study of man as he appears when
divested of his usual intellectual health, are the most
profitless and false. In preference to such things, it
were better for us to go at once and study what Sir
Thomas Browne so unceremoniously condemns as far
less worthy of admiration than the great wonders of
ourselves ; " the increase of Nile," " the magnetic
needle," "Africa and her prodigies," her magicians,
and her impostures. Let us then turn to better
things — to the contemplation of a fact in human
nature, common indeed, but really miraculous ; com-
mon, inasmuch as it is the universal privilege of
man to evolve it; but miraculous, inasmuch as it
directly violates (as shall be shown) the great and
otherwise universal law which regulates the whole
universe besides: we mean of the law of causality.
Oh ye admirers of somnambulism, and other de-
praved and anomalous conditions of humanity ! ye
worshippers at the shrine of a morbid and deluded
wonder ! ye seers of marvels where there are none,
and ye blindmen to the miracles which really are !
tell us no more of powers put forth, and processes
unconsciously carried on within the dreaming soul,
as if these were one-millionth part so extraordinary
and inexplicable as even the simplest conscious on-
goings of our waking life. In the wonders ye tell us
of, there is comparatively no mystery at all. That
man should feel and act, and bring about all his
operations without consciousness, is just what we
would naturally and at once expect from the whole

90 THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

analogy of creation, and the wide dominion of the
law of cause and effect. And wherever he is ob-
served to act thus, he is just to be looked upon as
having fallen back under the general rule. But come
ye forward and explain to us the true miracle of man's
being, how he ever, first of all, escaped therefrom,
and how he acts, and feels, and goes through intelli-
gent processes with consciousness, and thus stands
alone, a contradiction in nature, the free master and
maker of himself, in a world where everything else
is revolved, blind and unconscious, in the inexorable
mechanism of fate.

PART III.

CHAPTEE I.

What is philosophy ? Look at man struggling
against the fatalistic logic of physics, and thou
shalt best know what philosophy is. In the hands
of physical science man lies bound hand and foot,
and the iron of necessity is driven into the inner-
most recesses of his being ; but philosophy proclaims
him to be free, and rends away the fetters from his
limbs like stubble- withs. Physical science, placing
man entirely under the dominion of the law of
causality, engulfs his moral being in the tomb ; but
philosophy bursts his scientific cerements, and brings
him forth out of " the house of bondage " into the
land of perfect liberty.

If we look into the realities of our own condition,
and of nature as it operates around us, we shall be
convinced of the justness of this view. We shall
see that the essential character of philosophy is best

92 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

to be caught in contrast with the character of physics;
just as man is best read in the antagonism which
prevails between him and nature as she exists both
without him and within him; this strife conducing
in the former case to his natural, and in the latter
to his moral aggrandisement.

Without a figure, the whole universe may be said
to be inspired. A power not its own drives its
throbbing pulses. All things are dependent on one
another ; each of them is because something else has
been. Nowhere is there to be found an original, but
everywhere an inherited activity. Nature through-
out all her vicissitudes is the true type of hereditary
and inviolable succession. The oak dies in the forest-
solitudes, having deposited the insignia of its strength
in an acorn, from which springs a new oak that
neither exceeds nor falls short of the stated measure
of its birthright. The whole present world is but a
vast tradition. All the effects composing the uni-
verse now before us were slumbering, ages ago, in
their embryo causes. And now, amid the derivative
movements of this unpausing machinery, what be-
comes of man ? Is he too the mere creature of
traditionary forces ?

Yes; man in his earlier stages violates not the
universal analogy, but lives and breathes in the
general inspiration of nature. At his birth he is
indeed wholly nature's child ; for no living creature
is born an alien from the jurisdiction of that mighty
mother. Powerless and passive, he floats entranced

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 93

amid her teeming floods. She shapes his passions
and desires, and he, disputing not her guardianship,
puts his neck beneath their yoke. All that he is,
he is without his own co-operation : his reason and
his appetites come to him from her hand, he accepts
them unconsciously, and goes forth in quest of his
gratifications in blind obedience to the force that
drives him. All the germs that nature has planted
in his breast owe their growth to her breath, and,
unfolding themselves beneath it, they flourish in
blessedness — -for a time.

Hence this view of human life being the first to
present itself to observation, the genius of physical
science has ever been foremost to attempt to fix the
position of man in the scale of the universe, and to
read to him his doom. She tells thee, O man ! that
thou art but an animal of a higher and more intelli-
gent class ; a mere link, though perhaps a bright one,
in the uninterrupted chain of creation. No clog art
thou, she says, in the revolutions of the blind and
mighty wheel. She lays her hand upon thee, and
thou, falling into her ranks, goest to swell the legions
of dependent things, the leader, it may be, but not
the antagonist of nature. She bends thee down
under the law of causality, and, standing in her
muster-roll, thou art forced to acknowledge that law
as the sovereign of thy soul. The stars obey it in
their whirling courses, why shouldst not thou ? She
either makes thee a mere tabula rasa, to be written
upon by the pens of external things — an educt of

94 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

their impressions; or else, endowing thee with certain
innate capacities, she teaches thee that all thy pecu-
liar developments are merely evolved under a neces-
sary law out of germs that were born within thee,
are but the fruits of seeds thou broughtest into the
world with thee already sown. But whatever she
makes of thee, thou art no more thine own master,
according to her report, than the woods that burst
into bud beneath an influence they cannot control, or
than the sea rolling in the wind.

Such is the award of physical science with respect
to man ; and, confined to his birth and the earliest
periods of his life, her estimate of him is true. When
contemplated during the first stages of his existence,
Hamlet's pipe breathed upon by another's breath,
and fingered by another's touch, and giving out
sounds of discord or of harmony according to the
will of the blower, is not merely a type, but is the
actual reality of man.

But these are remote and visionary contemplations.
Turning from man in his cradle, let us observe the
actual condition of our living selves.

We are all born, as we have said, both in our
external and our internal fittings up, within the do-
main and jurisdiction of nature ; and nature, to our
opening life, is a paradise of sweets.

" Heaven lies about us in our infancy."

But the nascent fierceness which adds but new graces
to the sportive beauty of the tiger-cub, condemns

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 95

the monster of maturer years to the savage solitudes
of his forest-lair, and the graceful passions of child-
hood naturally grow up in the man into demons of
misery and blood. As life advances, the garden of
nature becomes more and more a howling wilderness,
and nature's passions and indulgences blacken her
own shining skies : and before our course is run, life,
under her guidance, has become a spectacle of greater
ghastliness than death itself.

Nature prompts a purely epicurean creed, and the
logic of physical science binds it down upon the
understandings of men ; for suppose that we should
turn and fight against the force that drives us. But
how can we ? says the logic of physics. We are in
everything at the mercy of a foreign causality, and
how can we resist its sway ? We are drifting before
the breath of nature, and can the wave turn against
the gale that is impelling it, and refuse to flow ?
Drift on, then, thou epicurean, thou child of nature,
passive in thy theory and thy practice, and sheathed
in what appears to be an irrefragable logic, and see
where thy creed will land thee !

But perhaps man has been armed by nature with
weapons wherewith to fight against the natural
powers that are seeking to enslave him. As if
nature would give man arms to be employed against
herself ; as if she would lift with her own hands the
yoke of bondage from his neck. And even suppos-
ing that nature were thus to assist him, would she
not be merely removing him from the conduct of one

96 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

blind and faithless guide, to place him under that of
another equally blind, and probably equally f aithless ?
Having been misled in so many instances in obeying
nature, we may well be suspicious of all her dictates.

We have also been prated to about a moral sense
bom within us, and this, too, by physical science —
by the science that founds its whole procedure upon
the law of causality, as if this law did not obliterate
the very life of duty, and render it an unmeaning
word. This moral sense, it is said, impels us to
virtue, if its sanctions be listened to, or lets us run to
crime if they be disregarded. But what impels us to
listen to the voice of this monitor, or to turn away
from it with a deaf ear ? Still, according to physical
science, it can be nothing but the force of a natural
and foreign causality. Nowhere, 0 man! through-
out the whole range of thy moral and intellectual
being can physical science allow thee a single point
whereon to rest the lever of thy own free co-opera-
tion. The moral power which she allows thee is at
the same time a natural endowment ; and being so,
must of course, like other natural growths, wax or
wane under laws immutable and independent of thy
control. Thou art still, then, a dependent thing, en-
tirely at the mercy of foreign causes, and having no
security against any power that may make thee its
instrument.

What, then, is to be done ? This : Let us spurn
from us the creed of nature, together with the fatal-
istic logic by which it is upheld. If we admit the

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 97

logic we must admit the creed, and if we admit the
creed we must admit the logic ; but let us tear both
of them in pieces, and scatter their fragments to the
winds. The creed of nature concludes simply for
enjoyment; but the truer creed of human life, a
creed which says little about happiness, was uttered
soon after the foundations of the world were laid,
and has been proved and perpetuated by the ex-
perience of six thousand years. "In the sweat of
thy brow shalt thou cultivate the earth;" and, it
may be added, in a bitterer sweat shalt thou till, oh
man ! as long as life lasts, the harsher soil of thy
own tumultuous and almost ungovernable heart.

This creed is none of nature's prompting, but is
the issue of a veritable contest now set on foot
between man and her. But how is this creed to be
supported ? How can we rationally make good the
fact that we are fighting all life long more or less
against the powers of nature ? We have flung
aside the logic of physics ; where shall we look for
props ?

Here it is that philosophy comes in. " The flowers
of thy happiness," says she, "are withered. They
could not last ; they gilded but for a day the opening
portals of life. But in their place I will give thee
freedom's flowers. To act according to thy inclina-
tions may be enjoyment; but know that to act
against them is liberty, and thou only actest thus be-
cause thou art really free. For thy freedom does not
merely consist in the power to follow a certain course,

G

98 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

or to leave it unfollowed, but it properly consists
in the single course of originating a new movement
running counter to all the biases which nature gives
thee, and in rising superior to the bondage thou wert
born in. I will unwind from around thee, fold after
fold, the coils of the inert logic of causality; and if
thou wilt stand forth practically as nature's victori-
ous foe, and speculatively as the assertor of the ab-
solute liberty of man against the dogmas of physics,
breaking the chain of causality, disclaiming the in-
spiration which is thy birthright, and working thy-
self out of the slough of sensualism, then shalt thou
be one of my true disciples."

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 99

CHAPTEE II.

But at what point shall Philosophy commence un-
winding the coils of fatalism from around man ? At
the very outermost folds. To redeem man's moral
being from slavery, and to circulate through it the
air of liberty by which alone it lives, is the great end
of philosophy ; but it were vain to attempt the accom-
plishment of this end, unless the folds of necessity be
first of all loosened at the very circumference or sur-
face of his ordinary character as a simply percipient
being. Make man, ah origine, like wax beneath the
seal, the passive recipient of the impressions of exter-
nal things, and a slave he must remain for ever in
all the phenomena he may manifest throughout the
whole course of his career. If there be bondage in
his common consciousness, it must necessarily pass
into his moral conscience. Unless our first and sim-
plest consciousness be an act of freedom, our moral
being is a bondsman all its life. True philosophy
will accept of no half measures, no compromise be-
tween the passivity and the activity of man. We
must commence, then, by liberating our ordinary

100 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

consciousness from the control or domineering action
of outward objects. Thus commencing at the very
circumference of man, we shall clear out an enlarged
atmosphere of freedom around that true and sacred
centre of his personality — his character, namely, as a
moral and accountable agent.

In returning, then, to the fact of consciousness, we
may remark that hitherto we have been chiefly occu-
pied in opening out a way for ourselves, and have
hardly advanced beyond the mere threshold or out-
works of psychology. Eegarding this fact as the
great, and indeed, properly speaking, as the only fact
of our science, we have done our best to separate it
from any admixture of foreign elements, and, in par-
ticular, to free it from that huge encumbrance which,
since the commencement of science, has kept it
weighed down in obscure and vaporous abysses — the
human mind, with all its facts, which are elements
of a fatalistic, and therefore of an unphilosophical
character. Imperfectly, indeed, but to the best of our
ability, we have raised it up out of the depths where
it has lain so long, and, blowing aside from it the
mist of ages, we have endeavoured to realise it in all
its purity and independence, and to make it stand
forth as the most prominent, signal, and distinguish-
ing phenomenon of humanity. But in doing this we
have done little more than establish the fact that
consciousness does come into operation. We still
expect to be able to make its character and signifi-
cance more and more plain as we advance, and now

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 101

beg to call the attention of the reader to three other
problems, which may be said to constitute the very-
vitals of the science of ourselves. These are, first,
When does consciousness come into operation ? Second,
How does consciousness come into operation ? And
third, What are the consequences of its coming into
operation ? The discussion of these three problems
will, it is thought, sufficiently exhaust this Introduc-
tion to the Philosophy of Consciousness.

First, however, let us remark that it was not
possible that these problems could ever have been
distinctly propounded, much less resolved, by the
" philosophy of the human mind." This false science
regards as its proper facts the states or phenomena
of mind, or, in other words, the objects of the act of
consciousness, degrading this act itself into the mere
medium or instrument through which these objects
are known. Thus researches concerning the nature
and origin of the objects of consciousness (of sensa-
tion, for instance), and not concerning the genesis of
the act itself of consciousness, constituted the prob-
lems of the science of mind. Our very familiarity
with this latter fact has blunted our perception of its
importance, and has turned us aside from the obser-
vation of it. Metaphysicians have been so much in
the habit of considering all the mental phenomena as
so evidently and indissolubly accompanied by con-
sciousness, that the fact that they are thus accom-
panied being taken for granted, as a matter of course,
as a necessity of nature, has been allowed to fall

102 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

out of notice as unworthy of any further considera-
tion. Yet we have all along seen that these phe-
nomena might perfectly well have existed, and in
animals and children of a certain age actually do
exist, without consciousness; or, in other words,
without being accompanied by the fact of personality,
the notion and the reality expressed by the word
" I." In short, we have seen that the presence of
consciousness forms the exception, and that the
absence of consciousness forms the great rule of crea-
tion : inspired though that creation is, throughout, by
intelligence, sensation, and desire. In devoting our
attention, therefore (as the philosophers of mind have
hitherto done), to such phenomena as intelligence,
sensation, and desire, we should virtually be philoso-
phising concerning unconscious creatures, and not
concerning man in his true and distinctive character ;
we should, moreover, as has been shown, be studying
an order of phenomena, which not only do not assist
the manifestation of consciousness, but which natur-
ally tend to prevent it from coming into operation ;
and finally, we should, at any rate, be merely contem-
plating attributes which man possesses in common
with the rest of creation. But the true science of
every being proceeds upon the discovery and examina-
tion of facts, or a fact peculiar to the Being in ques-
tion. But the phenomenon peculiar to man, the
only fact which accurately and completely contra-
distinguishes him from all other creatures, is no other
than this very fact of consciousness; this very fact,

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 103

that he does take cognisance of his intelligent and
rational states, blending with them, or realising in
conjunction with them, his own personality — a real-
isation which animals, endowed though they are like
man with reason and with passion, never accomplish.
And thus it is that the fact of consciousness, from
having occupied the obscurest and most neglected
position in all psychology, rises up into paramount
importance, and instead of submitting to be treated
with slight and cursory notice, and then passed from,
as the mere medium through which the proper facts
of psychology are known to us, becomes itself the
leading, and, properly speaking, the only fact of the
science ; while, at the same time, questions as to its
nature and origin, the time, manner, and consequences
of its manifestation, come to form the highest prob-
lems that can challenge our attention when engaged
in the study of ourselves. All the other facts con-
nected with us are fatalistic; it is in this phenomenon
alone, as we shall see, that the elements of our free-
dom are to be found.

104 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTER III.

The first question with which we are to be engaged is
this : When does consciousness come into operation ?
And we ask, first of all, Is man born conscious, or is
he conscious during several (be their number greater
or less) of the earlier months, we may say years, of
his existence ? We answer, No : for if he were, then
he would remember, or at least some individuals of
the species would remember, the day of their birth
and the first year or years of their infancy. People
in general recollect that of which they were conscious.
But perhaps it may be objected that a man, or that
many men, may forget, and often do forget, events of
which they were conscious. True; but it is abso-
lutely impossible, and at variance with universal ex-
perience, that everybody should forget that of which
everybody was conscious. If the whole human race
were conscious at the day of their birth, and during
their earliest childhood, it is altogether inconceivable
but that some of them at least should remember those
days and their events. But no one possesses any such
remembrance ; and therefore the inference is irresis-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 105

tible that man is not born conscious, and does not
become conscious until some considerable period after
his birth. Let this conclusion then be noted, for we
may require to make some use of it hereafter.

If, then, man is not conscious at his birth, or until
some time after it has elapsed, at what period of his
life does consciousness manifest itself ? To ascertain
this period we must seek for some vital sign of the
existence of consciousness. It is possible that, before
the true and real consciousness of the human being
displays itself, there are within him certain obscure
prefigurations or anticipations of the dawning phe-
nomenon ; and therefore it may not be practicable to
fix in the precisest and strictest manner its absolute
point of commencement. Still, compared with the
actual rise and development of consciousness, these
dim and uncertain preludes of it are even more faint
and indistinct than are the first feeble rays which the
sun sends up before him, compared with the glory
which fills heaven and earth when the great luminary
himself bursts above the sea. This parallel is cer-
tainly not perfect, because the sun, though below the
horizon, nevertheless exists ; but an un apparent con-
sciousness is zero, or no consciousness at all. Con-
sciousness, no doubt, keeps ever gaining in distinct-
ness, but there is certainly a period when it is an
absolute blank, and then there is an epoch at which
it exists and comes forth distinctly into the light;
an epoch so remarkable that it may be assumed and
fixed as the definite period when the true existence

106 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

and vital manifestation of consciousness commences.
Our business now is to point out and illustrate this
epoch.

It is a well-known fact that children, for some time
after they acquire the use of language, speak of them-
selves in the third person, calling themselves John,
Tom, or whatever else their names may be. Some
speak thus for a longer, others for a shorter period ;
but all of them invariably speak for a certain time
after this fashion. What does this prove, and how
is it to be accounted for ?

In the first place, it proves that they have not yet
acquired the notion of their own personality. What-
ever their intellectual or rational state may in other
respects be, they have not combined with it the con-
ception of self. In other words, it proves that as yet
they are unconscious. They as yet exist merely for
others, not for themselves.

In the second place, how is the origin of the lan-
guage, such as it is, which the child makes use of, to
be explained ? It is to be accounted for upon exactly
the same principle, whatever this may be, as that
which enables the parrot to be taught to speak. This
principle may be called imitation, which may be
viewed as a modification of the great law of associa-
tion, which again is to be considered as an illustra-
tion of the still greater law of cause and effect ; and
under any or all of these views it is not to be con-
ceived that intelligence is by any means absent from
the process. The child and the parrot hear those

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 107

around them applying various names to different
objects, and, being imitative animals, acting under
the law of causality, they apply these names in the
same manner : and now mark most particularly the
curious part of the process, how they follow the
same rule when speaking of themselves. They hear
people calling them by their own names in the third
person, and not having any notion of themselves,
not having realised their own personality, they have
nothing else for it than to adhere, in this case too,
to their old principle of imitation, and to do towards
themselves just what others do towards them ; that
is to say, when speaking of themselves they are un-
avoidably forced to designate themselves by a word
in the third person ; or, in other words, to speak of
themselves as if they were not themselves.

So long, then, as this state of things continues, the
human being is to be regarded as leading altogether
mere animal life, as living completely under the do-
minion and within the domain of nature. The law
of its whole being is the law of causality. Its sensa-
tions, feelings of every kind, and all its exercises of
reason, are mere effects, which again in their turn are
capable of becoming causes. It cannot be said to be
without " mind," if by the attribution of " mind " to
it we mean that it is subject to various sensations,
passions, desires, &c. ; but it certainly is without con-
sciousness, or that notion of self, that realisation of
its own personality, which, in the subsequent stages
of its existence, accompanies these modifications of

108 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

its being. It is still entirely the creature of instinct,
which may be exactly and completely denned as un-
conscious reason.

It is true that the child at this stage of its existence
often puts on the semblance of the intensest selfish-
ness ; but to call it selfish, in the proper sense of the
word, would be to apply to it a complete misnomer.
This would imply that it stood upon moral ground,
whereas its being rests as yet upon no moral founda-
tions at all. We indeed have a moral soil beneath
our feet. And this is the origin of our mistake. In
us, conduct similar to the child's would be really
selfish, because we occupy a moral ground, and have
realised our own personality; and hence, forgetting
the different grounds upon which we and it stand, we
transfer over upon it, through a mistaken analogy, or
rather upon a false hypothesis, language which would
serve to characterise its conduct, only provided it
stood in the same situation with us, and like us pos-
sessed the notion and reality of itself. The child
is driven to the gratification of its desires (prior
to consciousness) at whatever cost, and whatever
the consequences may be, just as an animal or a
machine is impelled to accomplish the work for
which it was designed ; and the desire dies only
when gratified, or when its natural force is spent,
or when supplanted by some other desire equally
blind and equally out of its control. How can we
affix the epithet selfish, or any other term indicat-
ing either blame or praise, to a creature which as

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 109

yet is not a self at all, either in thought, in word, or
deed ? For let it be particularly noted that the
notion of self is a great deal more than a mere notion,
— that is to say, it possesses far more than a mere
logical value and contents — it is absolutely genetic
or creative. Hiinking oneself " I " makes oneself " I ;"
and it is only by thinking himself " I " that a man
can make himself " I ;" or, in other words, change an
unconscious thing into that which is now a conscious
self. Nothing else will or can do it. So long as a
Being does not think itself " I," it does not and can-
not become " I." No other being, no being except
itself, can make it "I." More, however, of this
hereafter.

But now mark the moment when the child pro-
nounces the word " I," and knows what this expres-
sion means. Here is a new and most important step
taken. Let no one regard this step as insignificant,
or treat our mention of it lightly and superciliously;
for, to say the least of it, it is a step the like of which
in magnitude and wonder the human being never yet
took, and never shall take again, throughout the
whole course of his rational and immortal career.
We have read in fable of Circsean charms, which
changed men into brutes; but here in this little
monosyllable is contained a truer and more potent
charm, the spell of an inverted and unfabulous en-
chantment, which converts the feral into the human
being. The origination of this little monosyllable
lifts man out of the natural into the moral universe.

110 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

It places him, indeed, upon a perilous pre-eminence,
being the assertion of nothing less than his own abso-
lute independence. He is now no longer a paradisia-
cal creature of blind and unconscious good. He has
fallen from that estate by this very assertion of his
independence; but, in compensation for this, he is
now a conscious and a moral creature, knowing evil
from good, and able to choose the latter even when
he embraces the former ; and this small word of one
letter, and it alone, is the talisman which has effected
these mighty changes — which has struck from his
being the fetters of the law of causality, and given
him to breathe the spacious atmosphere of absolute
freedom; thus rendering him a moral and account-
able agent, by making him the first cause or complete
originator of all his actions.

If we reflect for a moment upon the origin and
application of the word " I," as used by the child, we
shall see what a remarkable contrast exists between
this term and any other expression which he em-
ploys ; and how strikingly different its origin is from
that of all these expressions. We have already
stated that the child's employment of language pre-
vious to his use of the word " I," may be accounted
for upon the principle of imitation, or that at any
rate it falls to be considered as a mere illustration of
the general law of cause and effect. He hears other
people applying certain sounds to designate certain
objects ; and when these objects or similar ones are
presented, or in any way recalled, to him, the conse-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. Ill

quence is, that he utters the same sounds in connec-
tion with their presence. All this takes place, very
naturally, under the common law of association. But
neither association, nor the principle of imitation, nor
any conceivable modification of the law of cause and
effect, will account for the child's use of the word " I."
In originating and using this term, he reverses, or
runs counter to all these laws, and more particularly
performs a process diametrically opposed to any act
of imitation. Take an illustration of this : A child
hears another person call a certain object "a table;"
well, the power of imitation naturally leads him to
call the same thing, and any similar thing, " a table."
Suppose, next, that the child hears this person apply
to himself the word " I :" In this case, too, the power
of imitation would naturally (that is to say, letting
it operate here in the same way as it did in the case
of the table) lead the child to call that man "I."
But is this what the child does ? No. As soon as
he becomes conscious, he ceases, so far at least as
the word " I " is concerned, to be an imitator. He
still applies the word " table " to the objects to
which other people apply that term ; and in this he
imitates them. But with regard to the word "I,"
he applies this expression to a thing totally different
from that which he hears all other people applying
it to. They apply it to themselves, but he does not
apply it to them, but to himself; and in this he is not
an imitator, but the absolute originator of a new
notion, upon which he now, and henceforth, takes up

112 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

his stand, and which leads him on in the career of a
destiny most momentous, and altogether anomalous
and new.

In opposition to this view is it objected that in the
use of the word " I " the child may still be considered
an imitative creature, inasmuch as he merely applies
to himself a word which he hears other people apply-
ing to themselves, having borrowed this application
of it from them ? Oh ! vain and short-sighted objec-
tion ! As if this very fact did not necessarily imply
and prove that he has first of all originated within
himself the notion expressed by the word " I "
(namely, the notion of his conscious self), and there-
by, and thereby only, has become capable of com-
prehending what they mean by it. In the use and
understanding of this word every man must be alto-
gether original. No person can teach to another its
true meaning and right application ; for this reason,
that no two human beings ever use it, or ever can
use it, in the same sense or apply it to the same
being: a true but astounding paradox, which may
be thus forcibly expressed. Every one rightly calls
himself by a name which no other person can call
him by without being convicted of the most outrage-
ous and almost inconceivable insanity. The word
" I " in my mouth as applied to you would prove me
to be a madman. The word " I " in your mouth as
applied to me would prove you to be the same.
Therefore, I cannot by any conceivability teach you
what it means, nor can you teach me. We must

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 113

both of us originate it first of all independently for
ourselves, and then we can understand one another.
This may be put to the actual test if any one is
curious to prove it. Let any man teach a parrot to
say " I " (it meaning thereby itself), and we pledge
ourselves to unwrite all that we have written upon
this topic.1

We have now, then, brought this question to a
conclusion; besides having opened up slightly and
incidentally a few collateral views connected with
other problems, we have returned a distinct answer
to the question, When does consciousness come into
operation ? Sensation, passion, reason, &c, all exist
as soon as the human being is born, but consciousness

1 It will not do to say that man is capable of forming the notion
expressed by the word "I," in consequence of the reason with
which he has been endowed, and that the parrot and other animals
are not thus capable of forming it in consequence of their inferior
degree of intelligence. We have treated of this point at some length
in the first part of our discussion. Let us now, however, make one
remark on the subject. It is plain that an increase or a deficiency
of reason can only cause the creature in which it operates to accom-
plish its ends with greater or less exactness and perfection. Rea-
son in itself runs straight, however much its volume may be aug-
mented. Is it said that this consciousness, this self-reference, this
reflex fact denoted by the word "I," is merely a peculiar inflection
which reason takes in man, and which it does not take in animals ?
True ; but the smallest attention- shows us that reason only takes
this peculiar inflection in consequence of falling in with the fact of
consciousness : so that instead of reason accounting for conscious-
ness, instead of consciousness being the derivative of reason, we
find that it is consciousness which meets reason, and gives it that
peculiar turn we have spoken of, rendering it and all its works
referable to ourselves. It is not, then, reason which gives rise to
consciousness, but it is the prior existence of consciousness which
makes reason human reason.

114 THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

only comes into existence when he has originated
within him the notion and the reality denoted by the
word " I." Then only does he begin to exist for
himself. In our next paper we shall proceed to the
discussion of the most important, but at the same
time most difficult, question in all psychology, How
does consciousness come into operation ?

PART IV.

CHAPTEE I.

To enter at length into a discussion concerning the
multifarious theories that have been propounded re-
specting the fact of perception would be an endless
and unnecessary labour. But as the problem we are
about to be engaged with has much in common with
these speculations, and as its solution has been re-
tarded by the assumption of various false facts which
have invariably been permitted to mingle with them,
we must, in a few words, strike at the root of these
spurious facts, and, employing a more accurate ob-
servation, we will then bring forward, purified from
all irrelevant admixture, that great question of psy-
chology, How, or in what circumstances, does Con-
sciousness come into operation ?

" Perception," says Dr Brown, " is a state of mind
which is induced directly or indirectly by its exter-
nal cause, as any other feeling is induced by its

116 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

particular antecedent. If the external cause or object
be absent, the consequent feeling, direct or indirect,
which we term perception, will not be induced, pre-
cisely as any other feeling will not arise without its
peculiar antecedent. The relation of cause and
effect, in short, is exactly the same in perception as
in all the other mental phenomena, a relation of
invariable sequence of one change after another
change." 1

This doctrine, which explains the phenomena of
perception by placing them under the law of caus-
ality, is maintained, we believe, in one form or an-
other, by every philosopher who has theorised on the
subject,2 from Aristotle, down through his scholastic
followers, past the occasionalists and pre-established
harmonists, and onwards to Dr Brown, who is merely
to be considered as one of its most explicit ex-
pounders. One and all of them assume that the

1 'Physiology of the Mind,' p. 125-6.

2 We are aware that Dr Brown and others have endeavoured to
teach the doctrine of causation as a simple relation of antecedence
and consequence, emptving our notion of cause of the idea of effi-
ciency, that is, of the element which constitutes its very essence.
But, unlike Hume, who adopted the same views and never swerved
from them, but carried them forth into all their consequences, they
never remain consistent with themselves for ten consecutive pages.
They keep constantly resuming the idea they profess to have ab-
jured ; as, for instance, in their admission with respect to the
efficiency or power of the Divine will. Therefore, their doctrine,
whatever it may be, does not in any degree affect the line of argu-
ment followed out in the text, addressed though that argument is
to those who entertain the common notion of causation, as, no
doubt, Dr Brown himself did, however different a one he may have
professed.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 117

great law of cause and effect is as little violated in
the intercourse which takes place between the ex-
ternal universe and man, as it is in the catenation
of the objects themselves constituting that universe.
Have we, then, any fault to find with this doctrine,
supported as it is by such a host of authorities ? and
if we have, what is it ? We answer that, in our ap-
prehension, it places Dr Brown and all the philo-
sophers who embrace it in a very extraordinary
dilemma, which we now proceed to point out.

If by " perception " Dr Brown understands " sen-
sation," and nothing more than sensation, then we
admit his statement of the fact to be correct, and his
doctrine to be without a flaw. Sensation (the smell
of a rose, for example) is certainly " a state " which
is " induced by its external cause," namely, by the
rose. This is certainly a simple and ordinary in-
stance of sequence, a mere illustration of the com-
mon law of cause and effect, and not a whit more
extraordinary than any other exemplification of that
great law. We admit, then, that here the phenome-
non is correctly observed and stated, that the law
of causality embraces sensation, and adequately ac-
counts for its origin. Where, then, does our objec-
tion lie ? It lies in this, that the origin of sensation
is not the true and pertinent problem requiring solu-
tion, but is a most frivolous and irrelevant question.
We thus, then, fix for Dr Brown and many other
philosophers the first horn of our dilemma. If by
" perception " they understand " sensation " merely,

118 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

they no doubt hit the true facts and their true ex-
planation, but then they entirely miss, as we shall
see, the question properly at issue, and, instead of
grappling with it, they explain to us that which
stands in need of no explanation.

But by " perception " Dr Brown and other philo-
sophers probably understand something more than
" sensation." If so, what is the additional fact they
understand by it ? When we have found it, we will
then fix for them the other horn of our dilemma.

When animals and young children are sentient,
there is in them, as we have all along seen, nothing
more than sensation. The state of being into which
they are cast is simple and single. It is merely a
certain effect following a certain cause. There is in
it nothing whatsoever of a reflex character. A par-
ticular sensation is, in their case, given or induced
by its particular external cause, and nothing more is
given. Indeed, what more could we rationally ex-
pect the fragrant particles of a rose to give than the
sensation of the smell of a rose ? Here, then, the
state into which the sentient creature is thrown
begins, continues, and ends, in simple and mixed
sensation, and that is all that can be said about it.

But when we ourselves are sentient, we find the
state of the fact to be widely different from this.
We find that our sentient condition is not, as is the
case in children and animals, a monopoly of sensa-
tion, but that here a new fact is evolved, over and
above the sensation, which makes the phenomenon

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 119

a much more complicated and extraordinary one.
This new and anomalous phenomenon which accom-
panies our sensations, but which is, at the same
time, completely distinct from them, is the fact of
our own personality, the fact and the notion denoted
by the word " I." Surely no one will maintain that
this realisation of self, in conjunction with our sen-
sations, and as distinguished from the objects caus-
ing them, is the same fact as these sensations them-
selves. In man, then, there is the notion and the
reality of himself, as well as the sensation that
passes through him. In other words, he is not only
sentient, like other animals, but, unlike them, he is
sentient with a consciousness, or reference to self,
of sensation ; two very different, and, as we have
already seen, and shall see still further, mutually
repugnant and antithetical states of existence.

This consciousness of sensation, then, is the other
fact contained in perception; and it is an inquiry
into the nature and orioin of this fact, and of it alone,
that forms the true and proper problem of psychology
when we are busied with the phenomena of percep-
tion ; because it is this fact, and not the fact of sen-
sation, which constitutes man's peculiar and distinc-
tive characteristic, and lies as the foundation-stone of
all the grander structures of his moral and intellec-
tual being.

We now then ask : Have Dr Brown and other
philosophers entertained the problem as to the origin
and import of this fact — the fact, namely, of con-

120 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

sciousness as distinguished from the fact of sensa-
tion, passion, &c. ; and have they thus grappled with
the true question at issue ? We answer : That if
they have, then have they grossly falsified the facts
of the case. For it is not the fact that the con-
sciousness of sensation is " induced, either directly
or indirectly, by its external cause," or by any cause
whatsoever. Sensation, no doubt, is induced by its
external cause, but consciousness is altogether exempt
from the law of causality, as we shall very shortly
prove by a reference to experience itself. In fine,
then, the dilemma to which Dr Brown, and, we be-
lieve, all other theorists on the subject of perception,
may be reduced, stands thus : Are they, primo loco,
right in their facts ? then they are wrong in the ques-
tion they take up. Or, secundo loco, do they hit the
right question ? then they falsify, ah initio, the facts
upon which its solution depends. In other words,
in so far as their statement of facts is true, they take
up a wrong question, inasmuch as they explain to
us the origin of our sensations when they ought to
be explaining to us the origin of our consciousness of
sensations, or the notion of self which accompanies
them. Or, again, supposing that they take up the
right question ; then their statement of facts is false,
inasmuch as their assumption that our consciousness
of sensation falls under the law of causality is totally
unfounded, and may be disproved by an appeal to a
stricter and more accurate observation.

The erection of this dilemma places us on a van-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 121

tage-ground from which we may perceive at a glance
both what we ought to avoid and what we ought to
follow. On the one hand, realising the true facts,
we can avoid the fate of those who expended their
labour on a wrong question ; and, on the other hand,
hitting the right question, we can also avoid the fate
of those who wrecked its solution upon false facts.
We can now steer equally clear of the Scylla of an
irrelevant problem, and the Charybdis of fictitious
facts. Perception is, as we have seen, a synthesis of
two facts, sensation, namely, and consciousness, or
the realisation of self in conjunction with the sensa-
tion experienced. The former of these is possessed
in common by men and by animals ; but the latter
is peculiar to man, and constitutes his differential
quality, and is, therefore, the sole and proper fact
to which our attention ought to direct itself when
contemplating the phenomena of perception.

122 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTER II.

We have already1 had occasion to establish and illus-
trate the radical distinction between consciousness on
the one hand, and sensation on the other, or any other
of those " states of mind," as they are called, of which
we are cognisant. We showed that consciousness is
not only distinct from any of these states, but is
diametrically opposed, or placed in a direct antithesis,
to them all. Thus, taking for an example, as we
have hitherto done, the smell of a rose, it appears
that so long as the sensation occasioned by this object
remains moderate, consciousness, or the realisation of
self in union with the feeling, comes into play with-
out any violent effort. But, suppose the sensation is
increased until we almost

' ' Die of a rose, in aromatic pain, "

then we affirm that the natural tendency of this aug-
mentation is to weaken or obliterate consciousness,
which, at any rate, cannot now maintain its place
without a much stronger exertion. We do not say
that this loss of self-possession, or possession of self,
1 P. 69.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 123

always happens even when human sensations are
most immoderate ; but we affirm that in such cir-
cumstances there is a natural tendency in man to
lose his consciousness or to have it weakened; and
that when he retains it, he does so by the counteract-
ing exercise of an unnatural, that is, of a free and
moral power ; and we further maintain that this ten-
dency or law, or fact of humanity, which is fully
brought to light when our sensations, emotions, &c,
are rendered very violent, clearly proves that there
is at bottom a vital and ceaseless repugnancy between
consciousness and all these " states of mind," even in
their ordinary and more moderate degrees of mani-
festation, although the equipoise then preserved on
both sides may render it difficult for us to observe it.
Had man been visited by much keener sensations,
and hurried along by much stronger passions, and
endowed with a much more perfect reason, the realisa-
tion of his own personality, together with the conse-
quences it involves, would then have been a matter
of much greater difficulty to him than it now is;
perhaps it would have amounted to an impossibility.
Even as it is, nothing can be more wonderful than
that he should evolve this antagonist power in the
very heart of the floods of sensation which, pouring
in upon all sides, are incessantly striving to over-
whelm it ; and secure in its strength, should ride, as
in a lifeboat, amid all the whirlpools of blind and
fatalistic passion, which make the life of every man
here below a sea of roaring troubles.

124 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

We now avail ourselves of the assistance of this
antagonism, which has thus been established as fact
by experience, in order to displace the false fact
generally, we might say universally, assumed in our
current metaphysics — namely, that consciousness, or
the fact and notion denoted by the word " I," comes
into manifestation at the bidding, and under the in-
fluence, of the objects which induce the sensations
accompanying it.

One fact admitted on all hands is, that our sensa-
tions are caused by certain objects presented to our
senses ; another fact assumed on all hands is, that
our consciousness of sensations falls under the same
law, and is likewise induced by the presence of these
objects. But consciousness and sensation are each
other's opposites, and exist as thesis and antithesis ;
therefore, according to this doctrine, we find two con-
tradictory effects attributed at the same moment to
the same cause, and referred to the same origin, just
as if we were to affirm that the same object is at the
same moment and in the same place the cause at
once of light and of the absence of light, or that the
sun at one and the same instant both ripens fruit
and prevents it from ripening. To illustrate this by
our former example (for a variety of illustrations adds
nothing to the clearness of an exposition), let us sup-
pose a sentient being to experience the smell of a rose.
So long as this being's state is simply sentient, its
sensation is absorbing, effective, and complete; but
as soon as consciousness, or the realisation of self,

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 125

blends with this feeling, it from that moment be-
comes weaker and less perfect. It is no longer pure
and unalloyed, and consequently its integrity is vio-
lated, and its strength in some degree impaired ; yet,
according to our ordinary psychologists, the same
object, namely, the rose, which induces the strength
of the sensation, also brings along with it that suspen-
sion or weakening of the sensation which conscious-
ness is. We are called upon to believe that the same
cause at the same moment both produces and destroys
a particular effect, a creed too contradictory and un-
intelligible to be easily embraced when thus plainly
exposed. If a particular object induce a particular
sensation, surely the suspension of that sensation, or,
in other words, the consciousness which impairs it,
and prevents it from being all-absorbing, cannot be
induced by the same cause. And, besides, if our
consciousness depended on our sensations, passions,
or any other of our " states of mind," would not its
light kindle, and its energy wax in proportion as
these were brightened and increased ? We have seen,
however, that the reverse of this is the case, and
that consciousness never burns more faintly than
during man's most vivid paroxysms of sensation
and of passion.

This argument, which is, however, rather a fact
presented to us by experience than an inference, en-
tirely disproves the dependency of man's conscious-
ness upon the external objects which give birth to
his sensations. It thus radically uproots that false

126 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

fact by which man is made the creature and thrall of
causality in his intercourse with the outward world,
and the passive recipient of its impressions. At the
same time, the displacement of this false fact opens
up to us a glimpse of that great truth, the view and
realisation of which it has hitherto obstructed, the
liberty of man. In order to get a nearer and clearer
prospect of this grand reality, let us extirpate still
more radically the spurious fact we have been dealing
with, until not a fibre of it remains to shoot forth
anew into sprouts of error.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 127

CHAPTEK III.

The earliest speculators among mankind were, as we
have before remarked, mere naturalists or physici.
They looked at everything and conceived everything
under the law of cause and effect. After a time, when
speculation began to be directed upon man, or became
what is now termed "metaphysical," this law still con-
tinued to be regarded as supreme, and the spirit of the
old method was carried on into the new research. But
as no instance of causality could be conceived with-
out the existence of a thing operated on, as well as of
a thing operating, they were forced to postulate some-
thing in man (either physical or hyperphysical) for the
objects of external nature to act upon. Thus, in order
to allow the law of causality an intelligible sphere of
operation, and at the same time to lift man out of the
mire of a gross materialism, they devised or assumed
a certain spiritualised or attenuated substance called
" mind," endowed with certain passive susceptibilities
as well as with various active powers ; and this hy-
pothetical substance, together with all the false facts
and foolish problems it brings along with it, has been

128 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

permitted to maintain its place, almost without chal-
lenge, in all our schools of philosophy down to the
present hour ; so completely has psychological science
in general taken the colour and imbibed the spirit of
physical research.

" Ut multis nota est naturae causa latentis ;
At sua qui noscat pectora rams adest."

It is time, however, that this substance, and the
doctrines and facts taught in connection with it, were
tested in a more rigorous and critical spirit, not, in-
deed, upon their own account, but on account of those
greater and more important truths whose places they
have usurped. How, then, do we propose testing
this substance ? In this way. The word " mind " is
exceedingly remote and ambiguous, and denotes —
nobody knows what. Let us then substitute in place
of it that much plainer expression which everybody
makes use of, and in some degree, at least, under-
stands— the expression " I " or " me ; " and let us see
how mind, with its facts and doctrines, will fare when
this simple, unpretending, and unhypothetical word
is employed in its place.

" External objects take effect upon mind, and per-
ception is the result." This doctrine lies at the very
threshold of our ordinary metaphysics, and forms the
foundation-stone upon which their whole superstruc-
ture is erected. But is it true ? Let us come to a
more distinct understanding of it by changing it into
the following statement, and we shall see what gross
though deep-lurking falsities are brought to light by

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 129

the alteration. Let us say " external objects take
effect upon me, and perception is the result." We
now then ask, To what period of our life is this pro-
position meant to have reference ? Does the philoso-
pher of " mind " answer that it may be applied to us
during any period, from first to last, of our existence ?
Then we tell him in return that, in that case, the
doctrine is certainly false, for it is not the fact that
things take effect upon " me " at the birth or during
the earlier years of that particular Being which after-
wards becomes " I," there being at that time no
f me " at all in the case ; no " me " for things to take
effect upon, as was proved in the preceding problem,
where it was shown that no man is born conscious,
or, in other words, that no man is born " I." It is
true that things take effect, from the very first, upon
that particular Being which, after a time and after a
certain process, becomes " I." But this particular
Being was not " I " at its birth, or until a consider-
able time after it had elapsed ; and, therefore, the
proposition, " things take effect upon me," is seen to
be untrue when applied to one period of human life
at least, and thus the ego, or that which, in the case
of each individual man, is " I ; " or, in other words,
his true Being is liberated from the control of the
law of causality, during the earlier stages at least of
his existence, in the most conclusive and effectual
way possible, namely, by showing that at that time
this " I " has no manner of existence or manifestation
whatsoever.

I

130 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

Does the philosopher of mind, giving up this point,
maintain that the proposition quoted has, at any rate,
a true and intelligible application to us in our grown
or advanced condition ? Then we tell him that, in
that case, the affirmation or dogma is altogether pre-
mature ; because, before it can be admitted, he is
bound to explain to us how the particular Being
given and contemplated, which was not " I " or
" me " at first, became converted into " me." Be-
fore any subsequent averment connected with this
" me " can be listened to, it is first of all incum-
bent upon him, we say, to point out to us how this
conversion is brought about ; to explain to us th
origin and significance of this " I," the circumstanc
out of which it arose ; for, as we have already sai
the particular Being which now appropriates it w
certainly not sent into the world a born or ready
made " I."

Suppose, then, that the metaphysician should sa
that this Being becomes " I " under the law of can
ality, and beneath the action of the external objee
which produce impressions upon it, then we would
like to know how it happened that these outward
objects, which induced the human Being's sensations
at the very first, did not cause him to become " I "
then. When he was first born he was just as sensi-
tive as he ever was afterwards, no doubt more so,
but for long his sensations continued pure and unal-
loyed. After a time, however, they were found to
be combined with the notion and reality of self, a

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 131

new notion and reality altogether. The human Being
has now become ego; from a thing he has become
a person. But what new circumstances were there
in his sensations, or their exciting causes, by which
they brought about this new fact and phasis of exist-
ence ? The metaphysician cannot answer us. He
must admit that the sensations and their causes
remain, after the manifestation of the ego, precisely
what they were before it came into existence, and,
therefore, that they can never account for its origin.

But we have already, in the preceding chapter,
disproved still more effectually the fact that the ego
comes into existence in consequence of the influence
of external objects. We there showed that conscious-
ness not only does not manifest itself in obedience to
their action, but that it actually tends to be sup-
pressed and obliterated thereby. Now consciousness
is the very essence and origin of the ego ; conscious-
ness creates the ego ; without consciousness no man
would be " I." Therefore the ego is also exempt from
the influence of outward objects, and manifests itself,
and maintains its place, not in consequence, but in
spite of them. Consciousness develops and pre-
serves itself by refusing to take part or identify itself
with the sensation, passion, or whatever it may be
that is striving to enslave the man; and the ego,
which is but the more personal and vital expression
of consciousness, exists merely by refusing to imbibe
the impressions of external things. Thus, so far is
it from being true that outward objects take effect

132 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

upon me, that " I," in truth, only am by resisting
and refusing to be impressed by their action.

When an effect or impression is produced on any
substance, whether it be motion, as in the case of a
struck billiard-ball, or sensation, as in the case of
animals and men, the substance impressed is either
conscious of the impression, as is the case with men,
or unconscious of it, as is the case with animals and
billiard-balls. If it be unconscious of the impression,
then, being filled and monopolised by the same, it
never rises above it, but, yielding to its influence, it
becomes altogether the slave of the law of causality,
or of the force that is working on it. But if this
substance be conscious of the impression made upon
it, then it is absolutely necessary, in the eye of rea-
son, that a portion of this being should stand aloof
from the impression, should be exempt from the
action of the object causing it ; in short, should
resist, repel, and deny it in the exercise of a free
activity ; otherwise, like animals and inferior things,
being completely absorbed and monopolised by the
influence present to it, it would no more be able to
become conscious of it than a leaf can comprehend
the gale in which it is drifting along, or the tiger the
passion which impels him to slake his burning heart
in blood. It is obvious that the point in man at
which he becomes aware of . his impressions must be
free from these impressions, and must stand out of
their sphere, otherwise it would be swallowed up by
them, and nothing save the impressions would re-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 133

main. But man is not made up of mere impressions
— passions, sensations, " states of mind," or whatever
they may be. He is not engulfed and borne along
in their vortices. There is a point from which he
looks down upon them all, and knows himself to be
free. He stands within a circle more impregnable
than enchanter's ring ; a circle which, however much
they may assault it, they cannot overpass : and this
point or circle of freedom, this true life of humanity,
is that which, in the case of each man, is " I."

This view disposes of a question which has been
ever regarded as forming the opprobrium of meta-
physics. We allude to the problem respecting the
mode and nature of the intercourse which takes
place between the external universe and man, or, as
metaphysicians say, " Mind." This question is now
given up, not because it has been solved, not because
it is regarded as too contemptible and irrelevant to
be entertained by speculative philosophy, but (pro
pudor!) because it is considered insoluble, inscrut-
able, and beyond the limits of the human faculties.
Oh, ye metaphysicians ! ye blind leaders of the blind !
How long will ye be of seeing and understanding
that there is no communication at all between man
in his true Being and the universe that surrounds
him, or that, if there be any, it is the communication
of 7wm-communication ? Know ye not that ye are
what ye are only on account of the antagonism be-
tween you and it ; that ye perceive things only by
resisting their impressions, by denying them, not in

134 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

word only, but also in vital deed ; that your refusal
to be acted upon by them constitutes your very per-
sonality and your very perception of them ; that this
perception arises not in consequence of the union,
but in consequence of the disunion between your-
selves and matter ; and, in fine, that your conscious-
ness, even in its simplest acts, so far from being in
harmony and keeping with the constitution of nature,
is the commencement of that grand disruption be-
tween yourselves and the world, which perhaps ye
will know more about before ye die ?

Of all difficult entails to be broken through, the
most difficult is the entail of false facts and errone-
ous opinions. If, however, the foregoing observa-
tions be attended to, we trust we have done some-
thing to cut off speculators yet unborn from their
inheritances of error. Of all the false facts involved
in the " science of the human mind," the greatest is
this, that, starting from the assumption of "mind"
as a given substance, we are thereby led to believe
that the ego or central and peculiar point of humanity
comes into the world ready-made. In opposition to
this belief, the true fact is that the ego does not thus
come into the world, but that the being which is now
"I" was not "I" at first, but became "I" after a
time and after a process, which it is the business of
the philosopher to explain. Various other fictitious
facts spring out of this tap-root of error. Thus, if
we start from mind as a given substance, we, of
course, are compelled to make this, in the first in-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 135

stance, passive, and only active through a species of
reaction. But the ego is never passive. Its being is
pure act. To hold it passive is to hold it annihilated.
It is for ever acting against the fatalistic forces of
nature. Its free and antagonist power shows itself
equally to the eye of reflection in our simplest per-
ceptive as in our highest moral acts. It lives and
has a being only in so far as it refuses to bow under
the yoke of causality ; and whenever it bends be-
neath that yoke, its life and all its results are gone.1

One word to those who imagine that the ego is
merely a variety of expression signifying nothing
more than the proper name of the person employing
it. There cannot be a greater philosophical error
than to conceive that the non-manifestation of the
ego is merely a verbal or logical defect, and that the
reality of it may exist in a being where the notion of
it is wanting. Yet this appears to us to be one of
the commonest errors in psychology. Metaphysi-
cians undisciplined by reflection, when contemplat-
ing the condition of a young child, and observing its
various sensitive, passionate, or rational states, are
prone, in the exercise of an unwarranted imagination,
also to invest it with a personality, with conscious-

1 "The false facts of metaphysics " ought to form no inconsider-
able chapter in the history of philosophy. Those specified are but
a few of them ; but they are all that we have room for at present.
To state, almost in one word, the fundamental error we have no-
ticed in the text, we should say, that the whole perversion and
falsity of the philosophy of man are owing to our commencing with
a substance, "mind," and not with an act, the act or fact of con-
sciousness.

136 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

ness ; in short, with that which, in their own case,
they call " I," transferring over upon it this notion
and reality which exist only for them. For the child
all this while does not think itself " I," and therefore
it does not in reality become " I." It never can be-
come "I" through their thinking. The "I" they
think for it is a spurious and non-existent " I." To
become " I " in reality, it must think itself " I," which
it has not yet done. But what do we mean precisely
by saying that the notion of " I " creates the reality of
" I " ? This we can best explain by a digression into
the history of philosophy, and by rescuing a once
famous dogma from the undeserved contempt into
which it has generally fallen.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 137

CHAPTEK IV.

The Cartesian philosophy is said to commence by
inculcating a species of wide and deep - searching
scepticism ; and its fundamental and favourite tenet
is that Cogito, ergo sum, which is now so universally
decried. But abandoning altogether its written dog-
mas and formulas, let us only return upon them after
we have looked forth for ourselves into the realities
of things.

When a man sees and thinks a mountain, it is
obvious that his thought does not create the moun-
tain. Here, then, the thought and the reality are not
identical; nor does the one grow out of the other.
The two can be separated, and, in point of fact, stand
apart, and are quite distinct. In this case, then, it
requires some degree of faith to believe that the
notion and the reality correspond. It is evident that
there is a sort of flaw between them which nothing
but the cement of Faith can solder ; a gap which no
scientific ingenuity has ever been able to bridge ; in
short, that here there is a chink in the armour of
reason which scepticism may take advantage of if it

138 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

chooses ; for the reality of the mountain being inde-
pendent of the notion of the mountain, the notion
may also be independent of the reality, and, for any-
thing that can be shown to the contrary, may have
been induced by some other cause. In short, the
notion, even when the mountain appears present
before us, may possibly exist without any corre-
sponding reality, for it clearly does not create that
reality.

In looking out, then, for a sure and certain foun-
dation for science, we must not build upon any tenet
in which a distinction between our thought and its
corresponding reality is set forth (as, for example,
upon any proposition expressing the real existence
of an external world), for here scepticism might
assail us, possibly with success; but we must seek
for some subject of experience, between the notion
of which and the reality of which there is no flaw,
distinction, or interval whatsoever. We must seek
for some instance in which the thought of a certain
reality actually creates that reality; and if we can
find such an instance, we shall then possess an in-
concussum quid which will resist for ever all the
assaults of scepticism.

But no instance of this kind is to be found, as we
have seen, by attaching our thoughts to the objects
of the universe around us. Our thinking them does
not make them realities. If they are realities, they
are not so in consequence of our thoughts; and if
they are not realities, unreal they will remain in

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 139

spite of our thoughts. Let us turn from the universe,
then, and look to ourselves, "I." Now here is an
instance in which there is no distinction or sunder-
ing between the notion and the reality. The two
are coincident and identical, or rather, we should
say, the one (that is, the notion "I") creates and
enforces the other (that is, the reality " I ") ; or, at
any rate, this appears to be the best way of logically
exhibiting the two. Between the notion and the
reality in this case scepticism can find no conceiv-
able entrance for the minutest point of its spear.
Let any man consult Ins own experience whether,
the notion "I" being given, the reality "I" must
not also necessarily be present ; and also whether, the
reality being present, the notion must not also ac-
company it. Let him try to destroy or maintain the
one without also destroying or maintaining the other,
and see whether he can succeed. Succeed he easily
may in the case of any other notion and reality. The
word mountain, for instance, denotes both a notion
and a reality. But the notion may exist perfectly
well without the reality, and the reality without the
notion. The notion " I," however, cannot exist with-
out the reality " I," and the reality cannot exist
without the notion v I," as any one may satisfy
himself by the slightest reflection.

Here, then, we have found the instance we were
seeking for. What is the notion " I " ? It is con-
sciousness or the notion of self. What is the reality
I " ? It is simply " I." Connect the two together

u T "

140 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

in a genesis which makes the one arise out of the
other, and you have the famous fundamental position
of the Cartesian philosophy, Cogito, ergo sum, a for-
mula which is worthy of respect, for this reason, if
for no other, that by it the attention of psychologists
was first distinctly directed to the only known in-
stance in which a notion and a reality are identical
and coincident, in which a thought is the same as a
thing.

But, by means of the dogma, Cogito, ergo sum, was
it not the design of Descartes to prove his own ex-
istence ? Take our word for it, no such miserable
intention ever entered into his head. His great
object, in the first place, was emphatically to sig-
nalise the very singular and altogether anomalous
phenomenon we have spoken of, namely, the identity
in man of thought and reality, and then to found
upon this point as on a rock which no conceivable
scepticism could shake ; and, in the second place, he
attempted to point out the genesis of the ego, in so
far as it admitted of logical exposition. Cogito, ergo
sum, I am conscious, therefore I am; that is, con-
sciousness, or the notion of "I," takes place in a
particular Being, and the reality of " I " is the imme-
diate result. The ergo here does not denote a mere
logical inference from the fact of consciousness, but
it points to a genetic or creative power in that act.

"Consciousness created you, that is to say, you
created yourself ; did you ? " we may here imagine
an opponent of Descartes to interpose.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 141

"No," replies Descartes; "I did not create my-
self, in so far as my mere existence is concerned.
But, in so far as I am an ego, or an existence as a
self, I certainly did create myself. By becoming
conscious, I, in one sense, actually created myself."

" But," says the other, " must you not have existed
before you could become conscious, and in order to
become conscious ?"

"Certainly," answers Descartes, "some sort of
being must have existed before my consciousness,
but it was only after consciousness that that being
became /."

" Do you then cease to be whenever you cease to
be conscious ? "

To this question Descartes answers both yes and
no. "As an existing being," says he, "fulfilling
many purposes of creation, I certainly do not cease
to exist when I cease to be conscious ; but as an ' I '
(ego), I certainly am no more the moment conscious-
ness leaves me. Consciousness made me from a
thing, a self; that is, it lifted me up from existing
merely for others, and taught me to exist also for
myself My being as an ego depends upon, and
results from my consciousness, and therefore, as
soon as my consciousness is taken away, my exist-
ence as an ego or self vanishes. The being hereto-
fore called ' I ' still exists, but not as ' 1/ It lives
only for others, not for itself ; not as a self at all,
either in thought or in deed."

142 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTER V.

But though we have seen that consciousness is the
genesis or origin of the ego, and that without the
former the latter has no existence, we have yet to
throw somewhat more light on consciousness itself,
and the circumstances in which it arises.

Let thyself float back, oh reader! as far as thou
canst in obscure memory into thy golden days of
infancy, when the light of thy young life, rising out
of unknown depths, scattered away death from before
its path, beyond the very limits of thought ; even as
the sun beats off the darkness of night into regions
lying out of the visible boundaries of space. In
those days thy light was single and without reflec-
tion. Thou wert one with nature, and, blending
with her bosom, thou didst drink in inspiration
from her thousand breasts. Thy consciousness was
faint in the extreme, for as yet thou hadst but slightly
awakened to thyself ; and thy sensations and desires
were nearly all-absorbing. Carry thyself back still
farther into days yet more "dark with excess of
light," and thou shalt behold, through the visionary

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. U3

mists, an earlier time, when thy consciousness was
altogether null; a time when the discrimination of
thy sensations into subject and object, which seems
so ordinary and inevitable a process to thee now, had
not taken place, but when thyself and nature were
enveloped and fused together in a glowing and in-
discriminate synthesis. In these days thy state was
indeed blessed, but it was the blessedness of bondage.
The earth nattered thee, and the smiling heavens
nattered thee into forgetfulness. Thou wert nature's
favourite, but at the same time her fettered slave.

But thy destiny was to be free; to free thyself,
to break asunder the chains of nature, to oppose thy
will and thy strength to the universe, both without
thee and within thee, to tread earth and the passions
of earth beneath thy feet ; and thy first step towards
this great consummation was to dissolve the strong,
primary, and natural synthesis of sensation. In the
course of time, then, that which was originally one
in the great unity of nature, became two beneath
the first exercise of a reflective analysis. Thy sensa-
tion was now divided into subject and object ; that is,
thyself and the universe around thee. Now, for the
first time, wert thou " I."

AYouldst thou re-examine thy sensation as it exists
in its primary synthetic state ? Then look at it ;
what is it but a pure unmixed sensation, a sensation,
and nothing more ? Wouldst thou behold it, in thy
own secondary analysis of it ? then, lo ! how a new
element, altogether transcending mere sensation, is

144 AN INTRODUCTION" TO THE

presented to thee, the element or act of negation ;
that is, as we shall show, of freedom.

Sensation in man is found to be, first of all, a
unity, and at this time there is no ego or non-ego at
all in the case ; but afterwards it becomes a duality,
and then there is an ego and a non-ego. But, in'the
latter case, it is obvious that very different circum-
stances are connected with sensation, and very dif-
ferent elements are found along with it, than are found
in it when it is a unity : there is, for instance, the
fact of negation, the non which is interposed between
the subject and the object; and there are also, of
course, any other facts into which this one may
resolve itself.

Moreover, it is evident that, but for this act of
negation or division, there would be no ego, or non-ego.
Take away this element, and the sensation is restored
to its first unity, in which these, being undiscrimi-
nated, were virtually non-existent. For it is obvious
that, unless a man discriminates himself as " I " from
other things, he does not exist as " I." The ego and
the non-ego, then, only are by being discriminated, or
by the one of them being denied (not in thought or
word only, but in a primary and vital act) of the
other. But consciousness also is the discrimination
between the ego and the non-ego ; or, in other words,
consciousness resolves itself, in its clearest form, into
an act of negation.

In order, then, to throw the strongest light we can
on consciousness, we must ascertain the value and

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 145

import, and, if possible, the origin of this act of
negation, this fundamental energy and vital condi-
tion upon which the peculiar being of humanity
depends. And, first of all, we must beg the reader
(a point we have had occasion to press upon him
before) to banish from his mind the notion that tins
negation is a mere logical power, or form, consisting of
a thought and a word. Let him endeavour to realise
such a conception of it as will exhibit it to him as a
vital and energetic deed by which he brings himself
into existence, not indeed as a Being, but as that
which he calls " I." Let him consider that, unless
this deed of negation were practised by him he
himself would not be here ; a particular Being would,
indeed, be here : but it is only by denying or dis-
tinguishing itself from other things that that being-
becomes a self — himself. Unless this discrimination
took place, the Being would remain lost and swal-
lowed up in the identity or uniformity of the universe.
It would be only for others, not for itself Self, in
its case, would not emerge.

Am I, then, to say that " I " have been endowed
by some other Being with this power of sundering
myself, during sensation, from the objects causing
it ; am I to say that this capability has been given
" me " ? Given me ! Why, I was not " I " until
after this power was exerted; how then could it have
been given " me " ? There was no " me " to give it to.
I became " I " only by exercising it ; and after it had
been exerted, what would be the advantage of sup-

K

146 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

posing it given to me then, I having it already ? If,
then, I suppose this power given to " me " before it
is exerted, I suppose it given to that which does not
as yet exist to receive it ; and if I suppose it given
to me after it is exerted, after I have become " I," I
make myself the receiver of a very superfluous and
unnecessary gift.

But suppose it should be said that this power,
though not, properly speaking, given to " me," is yet
given to that particular Being which afterwards, in
consequence of exercising it, becomes " I," then we
answer, that in this case it is altogether a mistake
to suppose that this particular Being exercises the
power. The power is, truly speaking, exercised by
the Being which infused it, and which itself here
becomes "I;" while the particular Being supposed
to become "I" in consequence of the endowment,
remains precisely what it was, and does not, by any
conceivability, become " I." One Being may, indeed,
divide and sunder another Being from other objects ;
but this does not make the latter Being "I." In
order to become " I " it must sunder itself from other
things by its own act. Finally, this act of negation,
or, in other words, consciousness, is either derived or
underived. If it is derived, then it is the conscious-
ness of the Being from whom it is derived, and not
mine. But I am supposing it, and it is admitted to
be, mine, and not another Being's, therefore it must
be underived ; that is to say, self -originated and
free.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 147

A particular Being becomes " I " in consequence of
exercising this act of negation. But this act must be
that Being's own ; otherwise, supposing it to be the
act of another Being, it would be that other Being
which would become I, and not the particular Being-
spoken of. But it was this particular Being, and no
other, which was supposed to become I, and there-
fore the act by which it became so must have been
its own ; that is, it must have been an act of pure
and absolute freedom.

In this self-originated act there is no passivity.
Now every pure and underived act, of course, implies
and involves the presence of will of the agent. If
the act were evolved without his will it would be the
act of another Being. In this act of negation, then,
or, in other words, in perception and consciousness,
Will has place. Thus, though man is a sentient and
passionate creature, without his will, he is not a con-
scious, or percipient being, not an ego, even in the
slightest degree, without the concurrence and energy
of his volition. Thus early does human will come
into play ; thus profoundly down in the lowest foun-
dations of the ego is its presence and operation to be
found.

PART V.

CHAPTER I.

The question of Liberty and Necessity lias been more
perplexed and impeded in its solution by the con-
founding of a peculiar and very important distinction,
than by all the other mistakes and oversights bur-
dened upon it besides. The distinction to which we
allude is one which ought to be constantly kept in
mind, and followed out as a clue throughout the
whole philosophy of man; the distinction, namely,
between one's existence for others, and one's exist-
ence for oneself; or, in other words, the distinction
between unconscious and conscious existence. This
distinction, we remark, is very commonly confounded ;
that is to say, the separate species of existence speci-
fied, instead of being regarded as two, are generally
regarded as only one ; and the consequence is, that
all the subsequent conclusions of psychology are
more or less perplexed and vitiated by this radical

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 149

entanglement, and more particularly is the great
question just mentioned involved in obscurity there-
by, and, to all appearance, doomed to revolve in the
weary rounds of endless and barren speculation. We
have already, in various parts of this discussion, en-
deavoured to establish a complete distinction between
these two kinds of being; and now, with a view
of throwing some light on the intricate question of
Liberty and Necessity, not derived from reasoning,
but from immediate fact, we proceed to illustrate
and enforce this discrimination more strenuously
than ever.

What, then, is our existence for others ; and in
what respect is it to be taken into account in a scien-
tific estimate of ourselves ? A little reflection will
explain to us what it is, together with all its actual
or possible accompaniments.

It will be admitted that except in man there is
no consciousness anywhere throughout the universe.
If, therefore, man were deprived of consciousness,
the whole universe, and all that dwell therein, would
be destitute of that act. Let us suppose, then, that
this deprivation actually takes place, and let us ask,
What difference would it make in the general aspect
and condition of things ? As far as the objects of
the external universe, animals and so forth, are con-
cerned, it would confessedly make none ; for all these
are without consciousness at any rate, and therefore
cannot be affected by its absence. The stupendous
machinery of nature would move round precisely as

150 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

heretofore. But what difference would the absence
of consciousness make in the condition of man ?
Little or none, we reply, in the eyes of a spectator ah
extra. In the eyes of a Being different from man,
and who regards him, we shall suppose, from some
other sphere, man's ongoings without consciousness
would be the same, or nearly the same, as they were
loith consciousness. Such a Being would occupy
precisely the same position towards the unconscious
man as the conscious man at present holds towards
the unconscious objects of creation; that is to say,
man would still exist for this Being, and for him
would evolve all his varied phenomena. We are not
to suppose that man in this case would be cut off
from any of those sources of inspiration which make
him a rational, a passionate, a sentient, and an imagi-
native creature. On the contrary, by reason of the
very absence of consciousness, the flood-gates of his
being would stand wider than before, and let in upon
him stronger and deeper currents of inspiration. He
would still be» visited by all his manifold sensations,
and by all the effects they bring along with them ; he
would still be the creature of pleasure and of pain ;
his emotions and desires would be the same as ever,
or even more overwhelming; he would still be the
inspired slave of all his soft and all his sanguinary
passions ; for, observe, we are not supposing him de-
prived of any of these states of being, but only of the
consciousness, or reference to self, of them — only of
that notion and reality of self which generally accom-
panies them ; a partial curtailment perfectly conceiv-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 151

able, and one which sometimes actually takes place ;
for instance, in that abnormal condition of humanity
denominated somnambulism. In the case we are
supposing, then, man's reason or intelligence would
still be left to him. He would still be a mathema-
tician like the bee, and like the beaver a builder of
cities. He might still, too, have a language and a
literature of a certain kind, though destitute, of
>urse, of all allusions and expressions of a conscious
>r personal character. But the " Goddess " or the
Muse " might and would still infuse into his heart
te gift of song; and then an unconscious Homer,
)lind in soul as well as blind in sight, filled by the
-ansmitted power of some foreign afflatus, might
lave sung the wrath of an unconscious Achilles, and
the war waged against Troy by heroic somnambulists
from Greece. For poetry represents the derivative
id unconscious, just as philosophy represents the
:ee and conscious, elements of humanity; and is
itself, according to every notion of it entertained and
expressed from the earliest times down to the present,
an inspired or fatalistic development, as is evident
from the fact, that all great poets, in the exercise of
their art, have ever referred away their power from
themselves to the " God," the " Goddess," the " Muse,"
or some similar source of inspiration always foreign
to themselves.1 " Est Deus" says the poet,

"Est Deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo."

1 Hence the truth of the common saying, Poeta nascitur, nonfit;
an adage which is directly reversed in the case of the philosopher,
Philosophies Jit, non nascitur.

152 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

Listen also to the testimony of our own Milton,
who, in one of his elegies, gives voice to the belief
that he owed his genius to the spring, and, like a tree
in the budding woods, was wont to blossom into
song beneath the vivifying spirit of that genial time.
"FaUorf" he asks,

' ' Fallor ? an et nobis redeunt in carmina vires,
Ingeniumque mihi munere veris adest ? " l

The sublimest works of intelligence, then, are quite
possible, and may be easily conceived to be executed
without any consciousness of them on the part of the
apparent and immediate agent. Suppose man to be
actuated throughout his whole nature by the might
of some foreign agency ; and he may realise the most
stupendous operations, and yet remain in darkness,
and incognisant of them all the while. A cognisance
of these operations certainly does not necessarily go
hand in hand with their performance. What is there
in the workings of human passion that consciousness
should necessarily accompany it, any more than it
does the tossings of the stormy sea ? What is there
in the radiant emotions which issue forth in song,
that consciousness should naturally and necessarily
accompany them, any more than it does the warb-
lings and the dazzling verdure of the sun-lit woods ?
What is there in the exercise of reason, that con-
sciousness should inevitably go along with it, any
more than it accompanies the mechanic skill with
which the spider spreads his claggy snares ? There

1 Miltoni Poemata. Elegia quinta. In adventum Veris.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 153

is obviously nothing. The divorce, then, between
consciousness, and all these powers and operations,
may be conceived as perfectly complete ; and this
conception is all that is here necessary for the pur-
poses of our coming argument.

Existence, then, together with all the powers and
operations just indicated, might be truly predicated
of man, even in his unconscious state. And even
more than this might be affirmed of him. We could
not, indeed, with propriety, say (the reason of which
will appear by-and-by) that man, without conscious-
ness, would be invested in any degree with a moral
character. Yet even here, according to the moral
philosophy of Paley and his school, in which morality
is expounded as the mere adaptation of means to
ends in the production of the social welfare, which
adaptation might be perfectly well effected without
any consciousness on the part of man, just as bees
and other animals adapt means to ends without being-
aware of what they are about ; according to this view,
man, although unconscious, would still be a moral
creature. Neither, without consciousness, would man
possess laws in the proper sense of the word ; but
here, too, according to the Hobbesian doctrines which
make law to consist in the domination or supremacy
of force, and the power of a supreme magistrate all
that is necessary to constitute it, man might, in every
respect, be considered a finished legislator, and a
creature living under laws.

But it is time to turn these preliminary observa-

154 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

tions to some account. Let us now, then, ask, de-
priving man of consciousness, What is it we actually
leave him, and what is it we actually deprive him
of ? We leave him all that we have said. We leave
him existence, and the performance of many opera-
tions, the greatest, as well as the most insignificant.
But the existence thus left to him, together with all
its phenomena, is, we beg it may be observed, only
one species of existence. It is a peculiar kind of
existence which must be noted well, and discrimi-
nated from existence of another species which we are
about to mention. In a word, it is existence merely
for others. This is what we leave man when we
suppose him divested of consciousness.

And now we again ask, depriving man of con-
sciousness, What do we really deprive him of ? and
we answer, that we totally deprive him of existence
for himself ; that is, we deprive him of that kind of
existence in which alone he has any share, interest, or
concern; or, in other words, by emptying him of con-
sciousness, we take away from him altogether his
personality, or his true and proper being. For of
what importance is it to him that he should exist
for otliers, and, for them, should evolve the most
marvellous phenomena, if he exists not for himself,
and takes no account of the various manifestations
he displays ? What reality can such a species of
existence have for him ? Obviously none. What
can it avail a man to be and to act, if he remains
all the while without consciousness of his Being and

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 155

his actions ? In short, divested of consciousness, is
it not plain that a man is no longer " I," or self, and,
in such circumstances, must not his existence, to-
gether with all its ongoings, be, in so far as he is
concerned, absolutely zero, or a blank ?

Thus existence becomes discriminated into two
distinct species, which, though they may be found
together, as they usually are in man, are yet per-
fectly separate and distinguishable ; existence, name-
ly, for others, and existence for oneself. Recapitu-
lating what we have said, this distinction may be
established and explained thus, in a very few words :
Deprive man of consciousness, and in one sense you
do Twt deprive him of existence, or of any of the
vigorous manifestations and operations of existence.
In one sense, that is, for others, he exists just as
much as ever. But in another sense, you do deprive
him of existence as soon as you divest him of con-
sciousness. In this latter sense he now ceases to
exist; that is, he exists no longer for himself. He
is no longer that which was " I," or self. He has
lost his personality. He takes no account of his
existence, and therefore his existence, as far as he
is concerned, is virtually and actually null. But if
there were only one species, and one notion of exist-
ence, it is impossible that man, when denuded of
consciousness, should both exist and not exist, as
we have shown he does. If existence were of one
kind only, it would be impossible to reconcile this
contradiction, which is yet seen to be perfectly true,

156 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

and an undeniable matter of fact. The conclusion,
therefore, is inevitable and irresistible, that existence
is not of one, but of two kinds ; existence, to wit,
for others, and existence for ourselves ; and that a
creature may possess the former without possessing
the latter, and that, though it should lose the latter
by losing consciousness, it may yet retain the former,
and " live and breathe and have a being in the eyes
of others."

Does some one here remark that consciousness is
not our existence, but is merely the knoivledye of our
existence ? Then we beg such a person to consider
what would become of his existence, toith respect to
him, if he were deprived of the knowledge of it.
Would it not be, in so far as he was concerned, pre-
cisely on the footing of a nonentity ? One's know-
ledge, therefore, or consciousness of existence, is far
more than mere consciousness of existence. It is
the actual ground of a species of existence itself. It
constitutes existence for oneself, or personal exist-
ence; for without this consciousness a man would
possess no personality, and each man's personality is
his true and proper being.

Having divided existence, then, into two distinct
kinds, the next question is, To what account do we
propose turning the discrimination ? If it is of no
practical use in removing difficulties and in throwing
light upon the obscurer phenomena of man, it is
worthless, and must be discarded as a barren and
mere hair-splitting refinement. What application,

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 157

then, has it to the subjects we are engaged in dis-
cussing ; and, in particular, what assistance does it
afford us in clearing up the great fact of Human
Liberty, that key-stone in the arch of humanity,
without which all our peculiar attributes, morality,
responsibility, law, and justice, loosened from their
mighty span would fall from their places, and dis-
appear for ever in the blind abysses of Necessity ?

In availing ourselves, then, of the assistance of
this distinction, and in applying it to our purposes,
the first circumstance connected with it which at-
tracts our attention is the following fact, deserving,
we may be permitted to say, of very emphatic no-
tice ; that while the one of these species of existence
precedes the act of consciousness, the other of them
follows that act. Our existence for others is ante-
cedent, but our existence for ourselves is subsequent
to the act of consciousness. Before a child is con-
scious, it exists for others ; but it exists for itself
only after it is conscious. Prior to consciousness, or
in the absence of that act, man is a one-sided phan-
tasmagoria ; vivid on the side towards others with all
the colours, the vigorous ongoings, the accomplish-
ments, and the reality of existence ; but on the other
side, the side where he himself should be, but is not
yet, what is there ? a blank ; utter nothingness. But,
posterior to consciousness, and in consequence of it,
this vacuity is filled up, new scenery is unfolded,
and a new reality is erected on the blank side behind
the radiant pageant. The man himself is now there.

158 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

The one-sided existence has become doubled. He
no longer exists merely for others ; he exists also for
himself, a very different, and, for him, a much more
important matter.

Existence for oneself, then, personal existence, or,
in other words, that species of Being which alone
properly concerns man, is found not to precede, but
to follow the act of consciousness ; therefore the next
fact of humanity to which we beg to call very par-
ticular attention is this : that man, properly speak-
ing, acts before he exists ; for consciousness is, as we
have already shown, and will show still further, a
pure act, and partakes in no degree of the nature of
a passion. At the same time, the proof that con-
sciousness is of this character will convince us that
it cannot have its origin in the first-mentioned and
given species of existence, which we have called
existence for others, or existence without conscious-
ness. But this is not the place for that proof. It
will be attempted by-and-by.

This fact, that man acts before he truly and pro-
perly exists, may perhaps at first sight appear rather
startling, and may be conceived to be at direct vari-
ance with what are called " the laws of human
thought ; " for it may be said that these laws compel
us to conceive man in Being before we can conceive
him in act. But if it should be really found to be
thus at variance with these laws, our only answer is,
that facts are " stubborn things," and that we do not
care one straw for the laws of human thought when

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 159

they contradict the facts of experience ; and a fact
of experience we maintain it to be (let people con-
ceive or not as they please or can), that man's true
Being follows and arises out of man's act, that man,
properly speaking, cannot be said to he until he acts ;
that consciousness is an act, and that our proper
existence, being identical and convertible with our
personality, which results from consciousness, is not
the antecedent but the consequent of that act.

Need we say anything further in enforcement and
illustration of this very extraordinary fact ? Every
man will admit that his true Being is that which for
him is " I." Now suppose no man had ever thought
himself " I," would he ever have become " I," or pos-
sessed a proper personal Being ? Certainly not. It
is only after thinking oneself " I," and in conse-
quence of thinking oneself "I," that one becomes
" I." But thinking oneself " I " is an act, the act
of consciousness. Therefore the act of consciousness
is anterior to the existence of man, therefore man is
in Act before he is truly and properly in Being ; or,
in other words, he performs an act before he has an
existence (i.e., a standing out) for himself.

But how can man act before he is ? Perhaps we
cannot perfectly explain the How, but we can state,
and have stated the That, namely, that the fact is so.
But at the same time we beg it to be understood that
it is only in one sense that this is true. We would
not be misunderstood. We here guard ourselves
from the imputation of saying that in every sense

160 AM INTRODUCTION TO THE

man is absolutely a nonentity before he acts, or that
he actually creates his Being. This we are very far
indeed from affirming. Prior to the act of conscious-
ness, he possesses, as we have said, an existence in
the eyes of others; and this species of existence is
undoubtedly given. Anterior to this act, the founda-
tions of his Being are wonderfully and inscrutably
laid. He is a mighty machine, testifying his Crea-
tor's power. But at this time being destitute of
consciousness, we again maintain that he is destitute
of personality, and that therefore lie wants that
which constitutes the true reality and proper life of
humanity. We maintain, further, that this person-
ality, realised by consciousness, is a new kind of
existence reared up upon the ground of that act;
that, further, there was no provision made in the
old substratum of unconscious Being for the evolu-
tion of this new act ; but that, like the fall of man
(with which perhaps it is in some way connected), it
is an absolutely free and underived deed, self-origi-
nated, and entirely exempt from the law of causality ;
and, moreover, in its very essence, the antagonist of
that law. This we shall endeavour to make out in
the following chapters; and if we can succeed in
showing this act to be primary original and free, of
course it will follow that the Being which results
from it must be free likewise. But, whether we
succeed or not, we at any rate think that, having
shown fully that the thought " I " precedes and
brings along with it the reality or existence " I," and

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 161

that this thought " I " is an act, we have now said
enough to establish this important truth in psycho-
logy, that man, when philosophising concerning him-
self, does not do well to commence with the contem-
plation, or with any consideration of himself as a Be-
ing (we say this with an especial eye to the substance
and doctrine of " Mind "), for his proper Being is but a
secondary articulation in his actual development, and
therefore ought to form but a secondary step in his
scientific study of himself, and ought to hold but a
subordinate place in his regard. But he ought to
commence with the contemplation of himself as an
act (the act of consciousness), for this is, in reality,
his true and radical beginning ; and, therefore, in
speculation he ought to follow the same order ; and,
copying the living truth of things in his methodical
exposition of himself, should take this act as the
primary commencement or starting-point of his phi-
losophical researches. Such, in our opinion, is the
only true method of psychological science.

162 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTEK II.

Man's existence for others, his unconscious existence,
is immediately given; his existence for himself, his
conscious personal existence, the reality ego, is not
immediately given, but is realised through an act.
Thus a radical distinction between these two sorts of
existence is established, the one being found to pre-
cede, and the other to follow that act. The Necessi-
tarian, however, takes no note of this distinction.
He breaks down the line of demarcation between
them. He runs the two species of existence into
one ; and the Libertarian, usually acquiescing in this
want of discrimination, places in his adversary's
hand the only weapon with which he might success-
fully have combated him. Disagreeing widely in
their conclusions, they yet agree so far in their pre-
mises, that both of them postulate, in an unqualified
manner, man's existence, as a substratum for his
actions. On this account, therefore, it must be con-
fessed that the victory, in point of logic, has always
been on the side of the Necessitarian, however much
common sense and moral principle may have rebelled

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 163

against his conclusions. For a given or compulsatory
existence can never be free in any of its acts. It
can merely serve to conduct the activity transmitted
to it from other quarters; and the peculiar inflec-
tions, whatever these may be, whether to evil or to
good, which it may appear to give to that activity,
cannot be owing to any original or underived power
it possesses, but must depend upon its natural con-
struction, just as a prism has no power in itself to
refract this way or that the rays of light which pass
through it, but is determined to this refraction by
the particular angles into which, without being con-
sulted, it was at first cut by the hand of its artificer.
In point of fact, the activity of such a being is no
activity at all, but pure passivity ; for a derivative
act is not properly action, but passion. In merely
receiving and passing on an act, a creature is not
an agent, but a patient. Such a creature, bringing
nothing original into the field, cannot, in any sense,
be said either to operate or co-operate. All its doings
beinsr derivative, are done for it or necessitated ;
therefore it is free in nothing, and, by the same
consequence, must remain devoid of morality and
responsibility.

The usual reasoning on this subject, therefore,
being utterly fatal to the cause of Human Liberty,
we have endeavoured, in the foregoing chapter, to
lay the groundwork of a new line of argument; the
only argument by which, in our opinion, the conclu-
sions of the Necessitarian can be met and disproved.

164 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

In clearing away the weeds by which the premises
of the question were overgrown, and in bringing
them under our close and immediate inspection, we
found that these premises, when viewed and tested
as facts (as all premises ought to be, if we would
ascertain their exact truth and value), are directly
the reverse of those usually laid down, and allowed
to pass current. We found, in a word, that an act is
the substratum of man's proper existence, and not
vice versd.

But this draws the controversy respecting Liberty
and Necessity to its extremest or narrowest point.
For it may here be asked, and indeed must be asked,
Whence comes this act? We have divided man's
existence into two distinct species, one of which —
that, namely, which we may now call his natural
existence — was found to be given and to precede the
act of consciousness. Now, does not this act natur-
ally spring out of that existence ? Is it not depend-
ent upon it ? Is it not a mere development from a
seed sown in man's natural being; and does it not
unfold itself, after a time, like any other natural
germ or faculty of humanity ? We answer, No. It
comes into operation after a very different fashion.
It is an act of pure will ; for precisely between the
two species of existence we have indicated, Human
Will comes into play, and has its proper place of
abode ; and this new phenomenon, lying in the very
roots of the act of Consciousness, dislocates the whole
natural machinery of man, gives a new and underived

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 165

turn to his development, and completely overthrows,
with regard to him, the whole law and doctrine of
causality ; for Will (as contradistinguished from, and
opposed to, wish or desire) is either a word of no
meaning and intelligibility at all, or else it betokens
a primary absolute commencement, an underivative
act. But as the Necessitarian may admit the former
of these alternatives, and may hold Will, when
applied to man, to be an unmeaning word, it will be
proper to postpone any discussion on that subject at
present; and, without involving ourselves in what,
after all, might be a mere skirmish of words, to do
our best to go more simply and clearly to work, by
addressing ourselves as much as possible to facts, or
the realities of things.

But lest it should be urged that man, although per-
haps really free, is yet incompetent to form a true and
adequate conception of Liberty, and that, therefore,
his freedom must, in any event, be for him as though
it were not ; lest this should be urged, we deem it
incumbent upon us, before proceeding to establish
Human Freedom as fact, to endeavour to delineate a
faithful and correct representation of it ; in short, to
place before our readers such a conception as would
be Liberty if it were actualised or realised in fact.
Before showing that Liberty is actual, we must show
on what grounds it is possible.

The ordinary conception of liberty, as a capacity
bestowed upon a given or created being, of choosing
and following any one of two or more courses of action,

166 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

is no conception at all, but is an inconceivability. It
is, in truth, so worthless and shallow as hardly to be
worthy of mention. On account, however, of the
place which it holds in ordinary philosophical dis-
course, we must contribute a few words to its expos-
ure. It arises out of a miserable attempt to effect a
compromise between liberty and necessity; and the
result is a direct and glaring contradiction. This
doctrine endeavours to hold forth an act, as at once
original and yet derived, as given and yet not com-
pulsatory or necessitated, as free and yet caused.
No wonder that human liberty, embodied in an act
of this kind, should halt upon both feet, and harbour
in the dingiest lurking-places of a perplexed and
vacillating metaphysic, a thing not to be scrutinised
too narrowly.

But since we are examining it, let us do so as
closely and narrowly as possible. What, then, does
this conception of liberty amount to, and what does
it set forth ? There is, in the first place, the being
in question — man — a derivative creature, we are told,
from the alpha to the omega of his existence. In
the next place, there is the power with which he is
said to be invested, of choosing between two or more
lines of conduct. In virtue of this power, he is at
first indifferent, or equally open to all these courses.
He must follow one of them, but is not constrained
to follow any one of them in particular, and pre-
cisely in this indetermination it is said that human
liberty consists. In the third place, when the choice

V

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 167

made, there is the practical following out of the
>urse fixed upon. Such are the three elements
mally noted in the process. But, allowing the
lust occasioned by this language to subside, let us
je whether nothing has escaped us in the confusion.
re observe, then, that the power of choice said to
given is, at first, undetermined ; that, indeed, it is
>n this openness or want of determination that the
essence of the liberty here described is placed. But
while this indetermination continues, the power of
choice of course remains inoperative. Before any of
the courses laid down can be followed, this power
must be determined to the particular course fixed
on ; that is to say, an act of determination (the choice
itself) must intervene between the undetermined
power of choice, and the course chosen. Here, then,
we have a new element, an element seldom specifi-
cally or rigidly noted in the usual analysis of the
process. The statement now stands thus: 1st, The
given being ; 2d, The undetermined power to choose,
the power as yet open to several courses of con-
duct ; 3d, The act of determinate choice, the power
now adstricted to one course; 4th, The actual per-
formance itself. Now the third element of this
statement, the one usually passed over without no-
tice, is the only step which we would raise any
question about. We ask, What adstricted the power
to the course selected ? Whence comes this act of
determination ? Is it, too, given, or is it not ? If it
is, then what becomes of human freedom ? The act

168 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

of determination being given or derivative, the being
in question was of course determined to the conduct
adopted, not by an original act, but was determined
thereto out of the source from whence his act of de-
termination proceeded. It was therefore absurd to
talk, as we at first did, of several courses having
been open to him. In truth, his act of determi-
nation being derived, or compulsatory, no course
was ever open to him except the one which he fol-
lowed, and was necessitated to follow in obedience to
that act. On the other hand, is this act of determin-
ation not given or enforced ? Then here has a new
and underived act started into light, one which
plays an important part, and forms an essential
ingredient in his composition; and what now be-
comes of the assumption upon which this modified
conception of liberty proceeded, namely, that man
is throughout a derivative creature ? The conclusion
is, that human liberty is impossible and inconceiv-
able if we start with the assumption that man is, in
everything, a given or derivative being ; just as, on
the other hand, the conception that man is altogether
a derivative being is impossible if we start with the
assumption that he is free.

But our present object is to realise, if possible, a
correct notion of human liberty. Nothing, then, we
remark, can be more ineffectual than the attempt to
conceive liberty as a power of choice, resting in a
state of indetermination to two or more actions ; be-
cause this state would continue for ever, and nothing

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 169

would be the result, unless an act of determination
took place in favour of some one of these actions ;
so that, between the undetermined power and the
action itself, an act of determination always inter-
venes ; and therefore the question comes to be, not,
"Whence comes man's undetermined power of choos-
ing ? but, Whence comes his act of particular choice
or determination ? Is it derivative ? can it be traced
out of him up into some foreign source ? Then of
course his liberty vanishes. Is it not derivative ?
Then his liberty stands good, but is no longer found
to consist in a state of indetermination to several
courses of action. It must be conceived of as an
underived or absolutely self-grounded act of deter-
mination in favour of one.

Thus, then, the conception of liberty is reduced to
some degree of distinctness and tangibility. If there
be such a thing as human liberty it must be identi-
cal with an absolutely original or underived act ; and
the conception of the one of these must be the same
as the conception of the other of them. But it is
still our business to show in what way the conception
of such an act is possible.

It is palpably impossible to conceive liberty, or an
underived act, as arising out of man's natural or given
existence. According to our very conception of this
species of existence, all the activity put forth out
of it is of a derivative or transmitted character. As
we have already said, such kind of activity is not
activity at all, but passivity. Not being originated

170 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

absolutely by the creature who apparently exerts it,
every particle of it falls to be refunded back out of
this creature into the source from whence it really
comes ; and this clearly leaves the being in question
a mere passive creature throughout, and, at any rate,
incapable of putting forth a primary and underived
act.

But though it is impossible for us to conceive an
underived act put forth out of man's natural existence,
there is yet nothing to prevent us from conceiving
an act of this kind put forth against man's natural
or given existence. If we consider it well, we shall
be satisfied that it is only on this ground that the
conception of an underived act is possible ; and,
moreover, we shall see that, on this ground, the con-
ception of such an act is inevitable.

For if we suppose an act of antagonism to take
place against the whole of man's given existence,
against all that man is born, it is impossible that
this act itself can be given or derivative; for the
supposition is, that this act is opposed to all the
given or derivative in man, and is nothing, except
in so far as it is thus opposed. If, therefore, it were
itself derivative, being no longer the opposite of the
derivative, it would be a nonentity ; or it would be
a suicidal act exterminating itself. Therefore, if we
are to form a conception at all of such an antagonist
act, we must conceive it as absolutely primary and
underived; and, on the other hand, if we would
frame a true conception of human liberty, or an

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 171

underived act, we can only conceive it as the an-
tagonist act we have been describing; we must
conceive it is an act opposing or resisting every-
thing in man which is given, passive, natural, or
born.

Thus, then, we have now shown in what way a
correct conception of human liberty is to be framed ;
or, in other words, we have pointed out the grounds
upon which man's freedom is possible. It is possible,
because the particular act described as identical and
convertible with it, namely, an act of determinate
antagonism against the natural or unconscious man,
can, at any rate, be conceived. But admitting that
it may be conceived, we must now ask, Is it also
practised ? Is Human Liberty actual as well as
possible ? Besides finding its realisation in thought,
does it also find its realisation in fact ?

172 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTER III.

For an answer to this question we must refer our-
selves to observation and experience. But observa-
tion and experience have already decided the point.
Consciousness itself is the actualisation of the con-
ception we have been describing. Lying between the
two species of human existence discriminated at the
commencement of this paper, consciousness is an act
of antagonism against the one of them, and has the
other of them for its result. A glance at the very
surface of man showed it to be a matter of general
notoriety, that sensation and the consciousness of
sensation, passion and the consciousness of passion,
never coexist in an equal degree of intensity. We
found the great law connected with them to be this ;
not that they grew with each other's growth and
strengthened with each other's strength, but, on the
contrary, that each of them gained just in proportion
as the other lost. Wherever a passion was observed
to be carried to its greatest excess, a total absence
or cessation of consciousness was noticed to be the
result, and the man lost his personality. When

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 173

consciousness began to reassert itself, and to regain
its place, the passion, in its turn, began to give way,
and, becoming diminished or suspended, the man
recovered his personality. The same was observed
to be the case with regard to sensation. A sensa-
tion is notoriously most absorbing when the least
consciousness of it has place ; and, therefore, is not
the conclusion legitimate that it would be still more
effective, that it would be a/Z-absorbing, provided no
consciousness of it interfered to dissolve the charm ?
And does not all this prove that consciousness is an
act of antagonism against the modifications of man's
natural being, and that, indeed, it has no office,
character, or conceivability at all, unless of this
antagonist and negative description ?

But this act has, as it were, two sides, and although
single, it fulfils a double office. We have still to
show, more clearly than we have yet done, how this
act, breaking up the great natural unities of sensation
and of passion, at once displaces the various modifica-
tions of man's given existence, and, by a necessary
consequence, places the being which was not given,
namely, the " I " of humanity, the true and proper
being of every man "who cometh into the world."
This discussion will lead us into more minute and
practical details than any we have yet encountered.

The earliest modifications of man's natural being
are termed " sensations." These sensations are, like
all the other changes of man's given existence, purely
passive in their character. Thev are states of suffer-

174 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

ing, whether the suffering be of pleasure or of pain,
or of an indifferent cast. There is obviously nothing
original or active connected with them. There is no-
thing in them except their own given contents, and
these are entirely derivative. In the smell of a rose,
for instance, there is nothing present except the smell
of a rose. In a word, let us turn and twist, increase
or diminish any sensation as we please, we can twist
and turn it into nothing except the particular sensa-
tion which it is.

Let us suppose, then, a particular sensation to be
impressed upon any of man's organs of sense ; let us
suppose it propagated forward along the nerves ; let
us trace it forth unto the brain ; let us admit Hart-
ley's or any other philosopher's " vibrations," " elastic
medium," or " animal spirits," to be facts ; and finally,
let us suppose it, through the intervention of the one
or other of these, landed and safely lodged in what
metaphysicians are pleased to term the "mind;"
still we maintain that, in spite of this circuitous
operation, the man would remain utterly uncon-
scious, and would not, in consequence of it, have any
existence as " I " (the only kind of existence which
properly concerns him), nor would the external ob-
ject have any existence as an object for him. He
would not perceive it, although sentient of it; the
reason of which is, that perception implies an " I "
and a " not I," a subject and object ; and a subject
and object involve a duality ; and a duality presup-
poses an act of discrimination. But no act of dis-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 175

crimination, no act of any kind, is involved in sensa-
tion ; therefore man might continue to undergo sen-
sations until doomsday without ever becoming " I,"
and without ever perceiving an external1 universe.

How then does man become " I " ? how does he be-
come percipient of an external universe ? We an-
swer, Not through sensation, but by and through an
act of discrimination, or virtual negation. This nega-
tion is not, and need not be, expressed in words. It
is a silent but deep deed, making each man an indi-
vidual person ; and it is enough if the reality of it
be present, even although the expression and distinct
conception of it should be absent. But if the reality
were actually absent, then there would be a differ-
ence indeed. If " no," in thought and in deed, were
taken out of the world, man would never become " I,"
and, for him, the external universe would remain a
nonentity. Sensation, passion, &c, would continue
as strong and violent as ever, but consciousness
would depart ; man and nature, " I " and " not I,"

1 The statement that we become acquainted with the existence of
an external world through, and in consequence of, our sensations,
besides its falsehood, embodies perhaps the boldest petitio principii
upon record. How are we assured of the reality of an external
world ? asks the philosophy of scepticism. Through the senses,
answers the philosophy of faith. But are not the senses themselves
a part of the external universe ? and is not this answer, therefore,
equivalent to saying that we become assured of the reality of the ex-
ternal universe through the external universe ? or, in other words, is
not this solution of the question a direct taking- for-gran ted of the
very matter in dispute ? It may be frivolous to raise such a ques-
tion, but it is certainly far more frivolous to resolve it in this man-
ner, the manner usually practised by our Scottish philosophers.

176 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

subject and object, lapsing into one, and everything
merging in a great unity, would be as though they
were not. Indeed, the consequences of the disap-
pearance of this small and apparently insignificant
element are altogether incalculable.

An illustrative view will help to render our mean-
ing more distinct, and our statement more convinc-
ing. Let us suppose man to be visited by particular
sensations of sight, of smell, of touch; and let us
suppose these induced by the presence of a rose
Now, it is evident that in this process the rose con-
tributes nothing except the particular sensations
mentioned. It does not contribute the element of
negation. Yet without the element of negation the
rose could never be an object to the man (and unless
it were an object to him, he of course would never
perceive it) ; neither without this element could the
man ever become " I." For let us suppose this ele-
ment to be absolutely withdrawn, to have no place in
the process, then " I " and the rose, the subject and
object, being undiscriminated, a virtual identification
of them would prevail. But an identification of the
subject and object, of the Being knowing and the
Being known, would render perception, conscious-
ness, knowledge inconceivable; for these depend
upon a setting asunder of subject and object, of " I "
and " not I." But a setting asunder of subject and
object depends upon a discrimination laid down be-
tween them. But a discrimination laid down be-
tween them implies the presence of the element of

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 177

negation ; that is to say, knowledge, consciousness,
perception, depend upon the restoration of the ele-
ment we supposed withdrawn, and are inconceivable
and impossible without it. It is therefore evident
that if man, in sensation, were virtually identified
with the object, were the same as it, he would never
perceive it ; it would never be an object to him, and
just as little would he be " I." But the only way in
which this virtual identification is to be avoided is
by and through an implied discrimination. Then
only do the " I " and " not I " emerge, and become
the " I " and the " not I." But an implied discri-
mination involves an act of negation, either impli-
citly or explicitly. Therefore an act of negation,
actual or virtual, is the fundamental act of humanity,
is the condition upon which consciousness and know-
ledge depend, is the act which makes the universe an
object to us, is the ground and the placer of the " I "
and the " not I."

Do metaphysicians still desire information with
respect to the " nature of the connection," the " mode
of communication," which subsists between matter
and what they term " mind " ? or do they continue to
regard this question as altogether insoluble ? About
" mind " we profess to know nothing. But if they
will discard this hypothetical substance, and consent
to put up with the simple word and reality " I " in-
stead of it, we think we can throw some light on
what takes place between matter and " me," and that
the foregoing observations have already done so.

M

178 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

The point at which all preceding philosophers have
confessed the hiatus to be insurmountable, the hitch
to be inscrutably perplexing, was not the point at
which the impression was communicated to the organ
of sense, was not the point where the organ commu-
nicated the impression to the nerves, was not the
point where the nerves transmitted it to the brain,
but was the point where the brain, or ultimate cor-
poreal tissue, conveyed it to the " mind." Here lay
the gap which no philosophy ever yet intelligibly
cleared; here brooded the mist which no breath of
science ever yet succeeded in dispersing. But, re-
pudiating the hypothesis of " mind," let us use th
word, and attend to the reality " I," and we shall see
how the vapours will vanish, how the prospect will
brighten, and how the hiatus will be spanned by th
bridge of a comprehensible fact. In the first place,
in order to render this fact the more palpable, let us
suppose, what is not the case, that the " I " is imme-
diately given, comes into the world ready-made, and
that a sensation, after being duly impressed upon its
appropriate organ of sense, and carried along the
nerves into the brain, is thence conveyed into this
" I." But we have just seen that, along with this
transmission of sensation, there is no negation con-
veyed to this " I." There is nothing transmitted to
it except the sensation. But we have also just seen
that without a negation, virtually present at least,
there could be no " I " in the case. This supposed
" I," therefore, could not be a true and real " I." Its

:

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 179

ground is yet wanting. In point of fact it may be
considered to lapse into " mind," and to be as worth-
less and unphilosophical as that spurious substance
which we have been labouring to get rid of. Throw-
ing tins " I," therefore, aside, let us turn back, and
supposing, what is the case, that the " I " is not im-
mediately given, let us follow forth the progress of a
sensation once more. A particular impression is
made upon an organ of sense in man, and what is
the result ? Sensation. Carry it on into the nerves,
into the brain, what is the result ? Mere sensation.
Is there no consciousness ? As yet there is none.
But have we traced the sensation through its whole
course ? No : if we follow it onwards we find that
somewhere or other it encounters an act of negation,
a " no " gets implicated in the process, and then, and
then only, does consciousness arise, then only does
man start into being as " I," then only do subject
and object stand asunder. We have already proved,
we trust with sufficient distinctness, that this act
must be present, either actually or virtually, before
man can be " I," and before the external universe can
be an object to him, that is, before he can perceive
it, and therefore we need not say anything more upon
this point. But does " the philosopher of mind " now
ask us to redeem our pledge, and to inform him dis-
tinctly what it is that takes place between " matter "
and "me" (matter presenting itself, as it always
does, in the shape of a sensation) ? then we beg to
inform him that all that takes place between them is

180 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

an act of negation, in virtue of which they are what
they are ; and that this act constitutes that link (or
rather unlink) between body and mind, if we must
call the " I " by that name, which many philosophers
have sought for, and which many more have declined
the search of out of despair of ever finding it.

We must here guard our readers against a delusive
view of this subject which may be easily taken up.
It may still, perhaps, be conceived that " mind," or
the " I," is immediately given, is sent into the world,
as we have said, ready-made, and that it puts forth
this act of negation out of the resources of its natural
being. Such a doctrine borrows its support, as we
have already hinted, from what are called " the laws
of human thoughts," but is utterly discountenanced
by facts ; that is to say, by the sources themselves
from whence these laws are professedly, although, as
it appears, incorrectly deduced. This doctrine directly
reverses the truth of facts and the real order of
things. It furnishes us with a notable instance of
that species of misconception and logical transposi-
tion technically called a husteron-proteron;1 in vulgar
language, it places the cart before the horse. For, as
we have all along seen, the being " I " arises out of
this act of negation, and therefore this act of negation
cannot arise out of the being " I." All the evidence
we can collect on the subject, every ray of light that
falls upon it, proves and reveals it to be a fact, that
the act of negation precedes the being " I," is the

1 S<rrepov irporepov — a last-first.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 181

very condition or constituent ground upon which it
rests, and therefore the being "I" cannot possibly
precede or be given anterior to this act of negation.
We may say, if we please, that this act of negation
is the act " I" but not that it arises out of the being
" I," because the whole testimony of facts discounte-
nances such a conclusion, and goes to establish the
very reverse. The perfect truth is, that man acts I
before he is I, that is to say, he acts before he truly
is ; his act precedes and realises his being — a direct
reversal of the ordinary doctrine, but a most import-
ant one, as far as the establishment of human liberty
is concerned ; because, in making man's existence to
depend upon his act, and in showing his act to be
absolutely original and underived, an act of antago-
nism against the derivative modifications of his given
nature, we encircle him with an atmosphere of liberty,
and invest him with a moral character and the dread
attribute of responsibility, which of course would
disappear if man, at every step, moved in the pre-
ordained footprints of fate, and were not, in some
respect or other, unconditionally free. And move in
these footprints he must, the bondsman of necessity
in all things, if it be true that his real and proper
substantive existence precedes and gives rise to his
acts.

If this act of negation never took place, the sphere
of sensation would be enlarged. The sensation
would reign absorbing, undisputed, and supreme ;
or, in other words, man would, in every case, be

182 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

monopolised by the passive state into which he had
been cast. The whole of his being would be usurped
by the passive modification into which circumstances
had moulded it. But the act of negation or con-
sciousness puts an end to this monopoly. Its pre-
sence displaces the sensation to a certain extent,
however small that extent may be. An antagonism
is now commenced against passion (for all sensation
is passion), and who can say where this antagonism
is to stop ? (We shall show, in its proper place, that
all morality centres in this antagonism.) The great
unity of sensation, that is, the state which prevailed
anterior to the dualisation of subject and object, is
broken up, and man's sensations and other passive
states of existence never again possess the entireness
of their first unalloyed condition, that entireness
which they possessed in his infantine years, that
wholeness and singleness which was theirs before
the act of negation broke the universe asunder into
the world of man and the world of nature.

This, then, proves that consciousness, or the act of
negation, is not the harmonious accompaniment and
dependent, but is the antagonist and the violator of
sensation. Let us endeavour once more to show that
this act, from its very character, must be underived
and free. The proof is as follows. Sensation is a
given or derivative state. It has, therefore, from the
first a particular positive character. But this act is
nothing in itself ; it has no positive character ; it is
merely the opposite, the entire opposite of sensation.

I

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 183

But if it were given and derived as well as sensation,
it would not be the entire opposite of sensation. It
would agree with sensation in this, that both of them
would be given. But it agrees with the sensation in
nothing. It is thoroughly opposed to it. It is pure
action, while the sensation is pure passion. The
sensation is passive, and is opposed to consciousness
because it is derivative. Consciousness is action, and
is opposed to sensation because it is not derivative. If
consciousness were a given state it would not be action
at all ; it would be nothing but passion. It would be
merely one passion contending with another passion.
But it is impossible to conceive any passion or given
state of Being without some positive character besides
its antagonist character. But this act of negation has
no positive character, has no character at all except
of this antagonist description. Besides, it is opposed
to every passion. If consciousness coexist with any
passion, we have seen that it displaces it to a certain
degree. Therefore, if consciousness were itself a
passive or derivative state it would be suicidal, it
would prevent itself from coming into manifestation.
But passing by this reductio ad absurdum, we main-
tain that consciousness meets the given, the derivative
in man, at every point, that it only manifests itself by
doing so ; and therefore we must conclude that it is
not itself derivative, but is an absolutely original act ;
or, in other words, an act of perfect freedom.

Let us here note, in a very few words, the conclu-
sions we have got to. At our first step we noticed

184

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

the given, the natural, the unconscious man, a pas-
sive creature throughout all the modifications of his
Being. At our second step we observed an act of
antagonism or freedom taking place against sensa-
tion, and the other passive conditions of his nature,
as we have yet more fully to see : and at our third
step we found that man in virtue of this antagonism
had become "I." These three great moments of
humanity may be thus expressed. 1st, The natural
or given man is man in passion, in enslaved Being.
2d, The conscious man, the man working into free-
dom against passion, is man in action. 3d, The " I "
is man in free, that is, in real personal Being.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 185

CHAPTEE IV.

Are we then to hold that man does not become " I "
by compulsion, that he is not constrained to become
" I " ? "We must hold this doctrine. No man is
forced or necessitated to become " I." All the neces-
sitated part of his Being leans the other way, and
tends to prevent him from becoming " I." He be-
comes " I " by fighting against the necessitated part
of his nature. " I " embraces and expresses the sum
and substance of his freedom, of his resistance. He
becomes " I " with his own consent, through the con-
currence and operation of his own will.

We have as yet said little about Human Will,
because "Will" is but a word; and we have all
along been anxious to avoid that very common,
though most fatal, error in philosophy — the error,
namely, of supposing that words can ever do the
business of thoughts, or can, of themselves, put us
in possession of the realities which they denote. If,
in philosophy, we commence with the word " Will,"
or with any other word denoting what is called " a
faculty" of man, and keep harping on the same,

186 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

without having first of all come round the reality
without the assistance of the word, if we seek to
educe the reality out of the word, the chances are a
thousand to one that we shall end where we began,
and never get beyond the region of mere words. It
makes a mighty difference in all kinds of compo-
sition, whether the reality suggests the word, or
whether the word suggests the reality. The former
kind of suggestion alone possesses any value ; it alone
gives truth and life both to philosophy and to poetry.
The latter kind is worthless altogether, either in phi-
losopher or poet; and the probability is, that the
reality which the word suggests to him, is not the
true reality at all.1

1 Some curious considerations present themselves in connection
with this subject. Human compositions may be divided into
two great classes. In the first, the commencement is made
from feelings, ideas, or realities. These beget and clothe them-
selves in words. These precede the words. The workers in this
order are, in poetry, the true poets. But the words having been
employed and established, it is found that these of themselves give
birth to feelings and ideas which may be extracted out of them
without recourse being had to any other source. Hence a second
class of composers arises, in whom words precede ideas — a class
who, instead of construing ideas into words, construe words into
ideas, and these again into other words. This class commences
with words, making these feel and think for them. Of this class
are the poetasters, the authors of odes to " Imagination," " Hope,"
&c, which are merely written because such words as "hope,"
"imagination," &c, have been established. These are the employ-
ers of the hereditary language of poetry. In philosophy the case
is precisely the same. An Aristotle, a Leibnitz, or a Kant, having
come by certain realities of humanity, through an original exertion,
and not through the instrumentality of words, makes use of a cer-
tain kind of phraseology to denote these realities. An inferior
generation of philosophers, finding this phraseology made to their

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 187

Without employing the word " will," then, let us
look forth into the realities of man, and perhaps we
shall fall in with the reality of it when we are never
thinking of the word, or troubling ourselves about it ;
perhaps we shall encounter the phenomenon itself,
when the expression of it is the last thing in our
thoughts ; perhaps we shall find it to be something
very different from what we suspected ; perhaps we
shall find that it exists in deeper regions, presides
over a wider sphere, and comes into earlier play than
we had any notion of.

The law of causality is the great law of nature.
Now, what do we precisely understand by the law of
causality ? We understand by it the keeping up of
an uninterrupted dependency throughout the various
links of creation; or the fact that one Being assumes,
without resistance or challenge, the state, modification,
or whatever we may choose to call it, imposed upon
it by another Being. Hence the law of causality is
emphatically the law of virtual surrender or assent.

hand, adopt it ; and, without looking for the realities themselves
independently of the words, they endeavour to lay hold of the re-
alities solely through the words ; they seek to extract the realities
out of the words, and, consequently, their labours are in a differ-
ent subject-matter, as dead and worthless as those of the poetaster.
Both classes of imitators work in an inverted order. They seek
the living among the dead : that is, they seek it where it never
can be found. Let us ask whether one inevitable result, one dis-
advantage of the possession of a highly cultivated language, is not
this : that, being fraught with numberless associations, it enables
poetasters and false philosophers to abound, inasmuch as it enables
them to make words stand in place of things and do the business of
thoughts ?

188 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

Now the natural man, man as he is born, is clearly
placed entirely under the dominion of this law. He
is, as we have often said, a mere passive creature
throughout. He dons the sensations and the passions
that come to him, and bends before them like a sap-
ling in the wind. But it is by no means so obvious
that the conscious man, the man become " I," is also
placed under jurisdiction of this law.

The " I" stands in a direct antithesis to the natural
man ; it is realised through consciousness, an act of
antagonism against his passive modifications. Are
we then to suppose that this " I " stands completely
under the law of causality, or of virtual surrender,
that the man entirely assents, and offers no resistance
to the passive states into which he may be cast ?
then, in this case, no act of antagonism taking place,
consciousness, of course, disappears, and the "I"
becomes extinct. If, therefore, consciousness and
the " I " become extinct beneath the law of causality,
their appearance and realisation cannot depend upon
that law, but must be brought about by a direct viola-
tion of the law of causality. If the " I " disappears
in consequence of the law of causality, it must mani-
fest itself (if it manifests itself at all) in spite of that
law. If the law of virtual assent is its death, nothing
but the law of actual dissent (the opposite of caus-
ality) can give it life.

Here, then, in the realisation of the " I," we find a
counter-law established to the law of causality. The
law of causality is the law of assent, and upon this

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 189

law man's natural being and all its modifications
depend. But the life of the " I " depends upon the
law of dissent, of resistance to all his natural or de-
rivative states. And if the one of these laws, the
law of assent, is known by the name of causality, the
other of them, the law of dissent, which, in man,
clashes with the law of causality at every point, is,
or ought to be, known by the designation of will ;
and this will, this law of dissent, which embodies
itself in an act of antagonism against the states
which depend upon the law of causality, and which
may therefore be called the law of freedom, as the
other is the law of bondage, is the ground-law of
humanity, and lies at the bottom of the whole opera-
tion of consciousness, at the roots of the existence
of the "I." Much more might be said concerning
these two great laws, which may be best studied and
understood in their opposition or conflict with one
another.

But we have dug sufficiently deep downwards. It
is now time that we should begin to dig upwards,
and escape out of these mines of humanity, in which
we have been working hard, although, we know,
with most imperfect hands. We have trod, we trust
with no unhallowed step, but with a foot venturous
after truth, on the confines of those dread abysses
which, in all ages, have shaken beneath the feet of
the greatest thinkers among men. We have seen
and handled the dark ore of humanity in its pure
and elemental state. It will be a comparatively

190

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

easy task to trace it forth in its general currency
through the ranks of ordinary superficial life. In
our next and concluding discussion, we will endeav-
our to point out the consequences of the act of con-
sciousness ; and we trust that the navigation through
which we shall then have to steer will be less intri-
cate and perplexing than that through which our
present course has lain.

PART VI.

CHAPTER I.

Philosophy has long ceased to be considered a valid
and practical discipline of life. And why ? Simply
because she commences by assuming that man, like
other natural things, is a passive creature, ready-made
to her hand; and thus she catches from her object
the same inertness which she attributes to him. But
why does philosophy found on the assumption that
man is a being who comes before her ready shaped,
hewn out of the quarries of nature, fashioned into
form, and with all his lineaments made distinct, by
other hands than his own ? She does so in imitation
of the physical sciences ; and thus the inert and life-
less character of modern philosophy is ultimately at-
tributable to her having degenerated into the status
of a physical science.

But is there no method by which vigour may yet
be propelled into the moribund limbs of philosophy ;

192 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

and by which, from being a dead system of theory,
she may be renovated into a living discipline of prac-
tice ? There is, if we will but reflect and understand
that the course of procedure proper to the physical
sciences — namely, the assumption that their objects
and the facts appertaining to these objects he before
them ready-made — is utterly inadmissible in true
philosophy, is totally at variance with the scope and
spirit of a science which professes to deal fairly with
the phenomena of Man. Let us endeavour to point
out and illustrate the deep-seated contradistinction
between philosophical and physical science, for the
purpose, more particularly, of getting light throwi
upon the moral character of our species.

When an inquirer is engaged in the scientific stud;;
of any natural object, let us say, for instance, of watei
and its phenomena, his contemplation of this object
does not add any new phenomenon to the facts and
qualities already belonging to it. These phenomena
remain the same, without addition or diminution,
whether he studies them or not. Water flows down-
wards, rushes into a vacuum under the atmospheric
pressure, and evolves all its other phenomena, whe-
ther man be attending to them or not. His looking
on makes no difference as far as the nature of the
water is concerned. In short, the number and char-
acter of its facts continue altogether uninfluenced by
his study of them. His science merely enables him
to classify them, and to bring them more clearly and
steadily before him.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 193

But when man is occupied in the study of the
phenomena of his own natural being, or, in other
words, is philosophising, the case is very materially
altered. Here his contemplation of these phenomena
does add a new phenomenon to the list already under
his inspection: it adds, namely, the new and ano-
malous phenomenon that he is contemplating these
phenomena. To the old phenomena presented to
him in his given or ready-made being, for instance,
his sensations, passions, rational and other states,
which he is regarding, there is added the supervision
of these states ; and this is itself a new phenomenon
belonging to him. The very fact that man contem-
plates or makes a study of the facts of his being, is
itself a fact which must be taken into account ; for
it is one of his phenomena just as much as any other
fact connected with him is. In carrying forth the
physical sciences, man very properly takes no note
of his contemplation of their objects ; because this
contemplation does not add, as we have said, any
new fact to the complement of phenomena connected
with these objects. Therefore, in sinking this fact,
he does not suppress any fact to which they can lay
claim. But in philosophising, that is, in constructing
a science of himself, man cannot suppress this fact
without obliterating one of his own phenomena ; be-
cause man's contemplation of his own phenomena is
itself a new and separate phenomenon added to the
given phenomena which he is contemplating.

Here, then, we have a most radical distinction laid

N

:

194 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

down between physics and philosophy. In ourselves,
as well as in nature, a certain given series of pheno-
mena is presented to our observation, but in studying
the objects of nature, we add no new phenomenon to
the phenomena already there ; whereas, on the con-
trary, in studying ourselves we do add a new phen
menon to the other phenomena of our being ; we ad
to wit, the fact that we are thus studying ourselv
Be this new phenomenon important or unimportant,
it is, at any rate, evident that in it is violated the
analogy between physics and philosophy, between
the study of man and the study of nature. For wh
can be a greater or more vital distinction between t
sciences or disciplines than this ; that while the o:
contributes nothing to the making of its own fac
but finds them all (to use a very familiar colloquism
cut and dried beneath its hand, the other creates,
part at least, its own facts, supplies to a certain e
tent, and by its own free efforts, as we shall see, th
very materials out of which it is constructed ?

But the parallel between physics and philosophy,
although radically violated by this new fact, is not
totally subverted; and our popular philosophy has
preferred to follow out the track where the parallel
partially holds good. It is obvious that two courses
of procedure are open to her choice. Either, following
the analogy of the natural sciences, which of them-
selves add no new fact to their objects, she may at-
tend exclusively to the phenomena which she finds
in man, but which she has no hand in contributing ;

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 195

or else, breaking loose from that analog}7, she may-
direct her attention to the novel and unparalleled
phenomenon which she, of herself, has added to her
object, and which we have already described. Of
these two courses, philosophy has chosen to adopt the
former — and what has been the result ? Surely all
the ready-made phenomena of man have been, by
this time, sufficiently explored. Philosophers, un-
disturbed, have pondered over his passions ; unmoved
they have watched and weighed his emotions. His
affections, his rational states, his sensations, and all
the other ingredients and modifications of his natural
framework have been rigidly scrutinised and classified
by them ; and, after all, what have they made of it ?
what sort of a picture have their researches presented
to our observation ? Not the picture of a man ; but
the representation of an automaton, that is what it
cannot help being ; a phantom dreaming what it can-
not but dream ; an engine performing what it must
perform ; an incarnate reverie ; a weathercock shift-
ing helplessly in the winds of sensibility; a wretched
association machine, through which ideas pass linked
together by laws over which the machine has no
control; anything, in short, except that free and
self - sustained centre of underived, and therefore
responsible activity, which we call Man.

If such, therefore, be the false representation of
man which philosophy invariably and inevitably pic-
tures forth whenever she makes common cause with
the natural sciences, we have plainly no other course

196 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

left than to turn philosophy aside from following
their analogy, and to guide her footsteps upon a new
line and different method of inquiry. Let us, then,
turn away the attention of philosophy from the facts
which she does not contribute to her object (viz., the
ready-made phenomena of man) ; and let us direct it
upon the new fact which she does contribute thereto,
and let us see whether greater truth and a more
practical satisfaction will not now attend her in-
vestigations.

The great and only fact which philosophy, of her-
self, adds to the other phenomena of man, and which
nothing but philosophy can add, is, as we have said,
the fact that man does philosophise. The fact that
man philosophises is (so often as it takes place) as
much a human phenomenon as the phenomenon, for
instance, of passion is, and therefore cannot legiti-
mately be overlooked by an impartial and true philo-
sophy. At the same time, it is plain that philosophy
creates and brings along with her this fact of man ;
in other words, does not find it in him ready made to
her hand ; because, if man did not philosophise, the
fact that he philosophises would, it is evident, have
no manner of existence whatsoever. What, then,
does this fact which philosophy herself contributes
to philosophy and to man, contain, embody, and
set forth, and what are the consequences resulting
from it ?

The act of philosophising is the act of systemati-
cally contemplating our own natural or given phe-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 197

nomena. But the act of contemplating our own
phenomena unsystematically, is no other than our old
friend, the act of consciousness ; therefore the only
distinction between philosophy and consciousness is,
that the former is with system, and the latter without
it. Thus, in attending to the fact which philosophy
brings along with her, we find that consciousness and
philosophy become identified; that philosophy is a
systematic or studied consciousness, and that con-
sciousness is an unsystematic or unstudied philosophy.
But what do we here mean by the words systematic
and unsystematic ? These words signify only a greater
and a less degree of clearness, expansion, strength,
and exaltation. Philosophy possesses these in the
higher degree, our ordinary consciousness in the
lower degree. Thus philosophy is but a clear, an
expanded, a strong, and an exalted consciousness;
while, on the other hand, consciousness is an ob-
scurer, a narrower, a weaker, and a less exalted
philosophy. Consciousness is philosophy nascent;
philosophy is consciousness in full bloom and blow.
The difference between them is only one of degree,
and not one of kind ; and thus all conscious men
are to a certain extent philosophers, although they
may not know it.

But what comes of this ? Whither do these obser-
vations tend ? With what purport do we point out,
thus particularly, the identity in kind between philo-
sophy and the act of consciousness ? Eeader ! if thou
hast eyes to see, thou canst not fail to perceive (and

198 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

we pray thee mark it well) that it is precisely in this
identity of philosophy and consciousness that the
merely theoretical character of philosophy disappears,
while, at this very point, her ever-living character, as
a practical disciplinarian of life, bursts forth into the
strongest light. For consciousness is no dream, no
theory ; it is no lesson taught in the schools, and con-
fined within their walls; it is not a system remote
from the practical pursuits and interests of humanity ;
but it has its proper place of abode upon the working
theatre of living men. It is a real, and often a bitter
struggle on the part of each of us against the fatalistic
forces of our nature, which are at all times seeking to
enslave us. The causality of nature, both without
us, and especially within us, strikes deep roots, and
works with a deep intent. The whole scheme and
intention of nature, as evolved in the causal nexus of
creation, tend to prevent one and all of us from becom-
ing conscious, or, in other words, from realising our
own personality. First come our sensations, and these
monopolise the infant man ; that is to say, they so
fill him that there is no room left for his personality
to stand beside them ; and if it does attempt to rise,
they tend to overbear it, and certainly for a time they
succeed. Next come the passions, a train of even
more overwhelming sway, and of still more flatter-
ing aspect ; and now there is even less chance than
before of our ever becoming personal beings. The
causal, or enslaving powers of nature, are multiplying
upon us. These passions, like our sensations, mono-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 199

polise the man, and cannot endure that anything
should infringe their dominion. So far from helping
to realise our personality, they do everything in their
power to keep it aloof or in abeyance, and to lull man
into oblivion — of himself. So far from coming into
life, our personality tends to disappear, and, like water
torn and beaten into invisible mist by the force of
a whirlwind, it often entirely vanishes beneath the
tread of the passions. Then comes reason ; and per-
haps you imagine that reason elevates us to the rank
of personal beings. But looking at reason in itself,
that is, considering it as a straight, and not as a reflex
act,1 what has reason done, or what can reason do for
man (we speak of kind, and not of degree, for man
may have a higher degree of it than animals), which
she has not also done for beavers and for bees, crea-
tures which, though rational, are yet not personal
beings ? Without some other power to act as super-
visor of reason, this faculty would have worked in
man just as it works in animals : that is to say, it
would have operated within him merely as a power
of adapting means to ends, without lending him any
assistance towards the realisation of his own person-
ality. Indeed, being, like our other natural modifica-
tions, a state of monopoly of the man, it would, like
them, have tended to keep down the establishment of
his personal being.

Such are the chief powers that enter into league to
enslave us, and to bind us down under the causal
1 Above, p. 113.

200 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

nexus, the moment we are born. By imposing theit
agency upon us, they prevent us from exercising out
own. By filling us with them, they prevent us froi
becoming ourselves. They do all they can to withholc
each of us from becoming " I." They throw evei
obstacle they can in the way of our becoming conscious
beings ; they strive, by every possible contrivance,
keep down our personality. They would fain have
each of us to take all our activity from them, insteac
of becoming, each man for himself, a new centre oi
free and independent action.

But, strong as these powers are, and actively
they exert themselves to fulfil their tendencies witl
respect to man, they do not succeed for ever in ren-
dering human personality a non-existent thing. Aftei
a time man proves too strong for them ; he rises u]
against them, and shakes their shackles from hi
hands and feet. He puts forth (obscurely and unsy*
tematically, no doubt), but still he puts forth a par-
ticular kind of act, which thwarts and sets at noughl
the whole causal domination of nature. Out of th<
working of this act is evolved man in his character of
a free, personal, and moral being. This act is itself
man ; it is man acting, and man in act precedes, as
we have seen, man in being, that is, in true and pro-
per being. Nature and her powers have now no con-
straining hold over him ; he stands out of her juris-
diction. In this act he has taken himself out of her
hands into his own ; he has made himself his own
master. In this act he has displaced his sensations,

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 201

and his sensations no longer monopolise him; they
have no longer the complete mastery over him. In
this act he has thrust his passions from their place,
and his passions have lost their supreme ascendancy.
And now what is this particular kind of act ? What
is it but the act of consciousness, the act of becoming
" I," the act of placing ourselves in the room which
sensation and passion have been made to vacate ?
Tins act may be obscure in the extreme, but still it is
an act of the most practical kind, both in itself and
in its results ; and this is what we are here particu-
larly desirous of having noted. For what act can be
more vitally practical than the act by which we
realise our existence as free personal beings ? and
what act can be attended by a more practical result
than the act by which we look our passions in the
face, and, in the very act of looking at them, look
th'/ii clown ?

Xow, if consciousness be an act of such mighty
and practical efficiency in real life, what must not
the practical might and authority of philosophy be ?
Philosophy is consciousness sublimed. If, therefore,
the lower and obscurer form of this act can work such
real wonders and such great results, what may we not
expect from it in its highest and clearest potence ?
If our unsystematic and undisciplined consciousness
be thus practical in its results (and practical to a
most momentous extent it is), how much more vitally
and effectively practical must not our systematic and
tutored consciousness, namely, philosophy, be ? Con-

202 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

sciousness when enlightened and expanded is iden-
tical with philosophy. And what is consciousness
enlightened and expanded ? It is, as we have already
seen, an act of practical antagonism put forth against
the modifications of the whole natural man: and
what then is philosophy but an act of practical an-
tagonism put forth against the modifications of the
whole natural man ? But further, what is this act of
antagonism, when it, too, is enlightened and explained ?
What is it but an act of freedom — an act of resistance,
by which we free ourselves from the causal bondage
of nature — from all the natural laws and conditions
under which we were born ; and what then is philo-
sophy but an act of the highest, the most essential,
and the most practical freedom ? But further, what
is this act of freedom when it also is cleared up and
explained ? It turns out to be Human Will ; for the
refusal to submit to the modifications of the whole
natural man must be grounded on a law opposed
to the law under which these modifications develop
themselves, namely, the causal law, and this opposing
law is the law called human will : and what then is
philosophy but pure and indomitable will ? or, in
other words, the most practical of all conceivable
acts, inasmuch as will is the absolute source and
fountainhead of all real activity. And, finally, let us
ask again, what is this act of antagonism against the
natural states of humanity ? what is this act in which
we sacrifice our sensations, passions, and desires, that
is, our false selves, upon the shrine of our true selves ?

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 203

what is this act in which Freedom and Will are em-
bodied to defeat all the enslaving powers of darkness
that are incessantly beleaguering us ? what is it but
morality of the highest, noblest, and most active
kind ? and, therefore, what is human philosophy, ulti-
mately, but another name for human virtue of the
most practical and exalted character?

Such are the steps by which we vindicate the title
of philosophy to the rank of a real and practical dis-
cipline of humanity. To sum up: we commenced
by noticing, what cannot fail to present itself to the
observation of every one, the inert and unreal char-
acter of our modern philosophy, metaphysical philo-
sophy as it is called ; and we suspected, indeed we
felt assured, that this character arose from our adopt-
ing, in philosophy, the method of the physical sciences.
We, therefore, tore philosophy away from the analogy
of physics, and in direct violation of their procedure
we made her contemplate a fact which she herself
created, and contributed to her object, a fact which
she did not find there ; the fact, namely, that an act
of philosophising was taking place. But the con-
sideration of this fact or act brought us to perceive
the identity between consciousness and philosophy,
and then the perception of this identity led us at
once to note the truly practical character of philo-
sophy. For consciousness is an act of the most
vitally real and practical character (we have yet to
see more fully how it makes us moral beings). It is
icar egoxhv the great practical act of humanity — the

204 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

act by which man becomes man in the first instance,
and by the incessant performance of which he pre-
serves his moral status, and prevents himself from
falling back into the causal bondage of nature, which
is at all times too ready to reclaim him ; and, there-
fore, philosophy, which is but a higher phase of con-
sciousness, is seen to be an act of a still higher prac-
tical character. Now, the whole of this vindication
of the practical character of philosophy is evidently
based upon her abandonment of the physical method,
upon her turning away from the given facts of man
to the contemplation of a fact which is not given in
his natural being, but which philosophy herself con-
tributes to her own construction and to man, namely,
the act itself of philosophising, or, in simple lan-
guage, the act of consciousness. This fact cannot
possibly be given : for we have seen that all the
given facts of man's being necessarily tend to sup-
press it ; and therefore (as we have also seen) it is,
and must be a free and underived, and not in any
conceivable sense a ready-made fact of humanity.

Thus, then, we see that philosophy, when she gets
her due — when she deals fairly with man, and when
man deals fairly by her — in short, when she is rightly
represented and understood, loses her merely theo-
retical complexion, and becomes identified with al
the best practical interests of our living selves. She
no longer stands aloof from humanity, but, descend-
ing into this world's arena, she takes an active part
in the ongoings of busy life. Her dead symbols

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 205

)urst forth into living realities ; the dry rustling
twigs of science become clothed with all the verdure
of the spring. Her inert tutorage is transformed
into an actual life. Her dead lessons grow into
man's active wisdom and practical virtue. Her
sleeping waters become the bursting fountainhead
from whence flows all the activity which sets in
motion the currents of human practice and of human
progression. Truly, yvwOi creavrbv was the sublimest,
the most comprehensive, and the most practical
oracle of ancient wisdom. Know thyself, and, in
knowing thyself, thou shalt see that this self is
not thy true self ; but, in the very act of knowing
this, thou shalt at once displace this false self, and
establish thy true self in its room.

206

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTER II.

Philosophy, then, has a practical as well as a theo-
retical side; besides being a system of speculative
truth, it is a real and effective discipline of humanity.
It is the point of conciliation in which life, know-
ledge, and virtue meet. In it, fact and duty,1 or,
that which is, and that which ought to be, are blended
into one identity. But the practical character of
philosophy, the active part which it plays through-
out human concerns, has yet to be more fully and
distinctly elucidated.

The great principle which we have all along been

1 Sir James Mackintosh, and others, have attempted to establish
a distinction between "mental" and "moral" science, founded on
an alleged difference between fact and duty. They state, that it is
the office of the former science to teach us what is (quid est), and
that it is the office of the latter to teach us what ought to be (quid
oportet). But this discrimination vanishes into nought upon the
slightest reflection ; it either incessantfy confounds and obliterates
itself, or else it renders moral science an unreal and nugatory pur-
suit. For, let us ask, does the quid oportet ever become the quid
est? does what ought to be ever pass into what is, or, in other
words, is duty ever realised as fact ? If it is, then the distinction
is at an end. The oportet has taken upon itself the character of
the est. Duty, in becoming practical, has become a fact. It no

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 207

labouring to bring out — namely, that human con-
sciousness is, in every instance, an act of antagonism
against some one or other of the given modifications
of our natural existence — finds its strongest confirma-
tion when we turn to the contemplation of the moral
character of man. We have hitherto been consider-
ing consciousness chiefly in its relation to those mo-
difications of our nature which are impressed upon
us from without. We here found, that consciousness,
when deeply scrutinised, is an act of opposition put
forth against our sensations ; that our sensations are
invaded and impaired by an act of resistance which
breaks up their monopolising dominion, and in the
room of the sensation thus partially displaced, realises
man's personality, a new centre of activity known
to each individual by the name " I," a word which,
when rightly construed, stands as the exponent of
our violation of the causal nexus of nature, and of
our consequent emancipation therefrom. The com-
plex antithetical phenomenon in which this opposition

longer merely points out something which ought to be, it also em-
bodies something which is. And thus it is transformed into the
very other member of the discrimination from which it was origi-
nally contradistinguished ; and thus the distinction is rendered
utterly void; while "mental" and "moral" science, if we must
affix these epithets to philosophy, lapse into one. On the other
hand, does the quid oportet never, in any degree, become the quid
est, does duty never pass into fact ? Then is the science of morals
a visionary, a baseless, and an aimless science, a mere querulous
hankering after what can never be. In this case, there is plainly
no real or substantial science, except the science of facts, the
science which teaches us the quid est. To talk now of a science of
the quid oportet, would be to make use of unmeaning words.

208 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

manifests itself, we found to be the fact of perception.
We have now to consider consciousness in its relation
to those modifications of our nature which assail us
from within ; and here it will be found, that just as
all perception originates in the antagonism between
consciousness and our sensations, so all morality ori-
ginates in the antagonism between consciousness and
the passions, desires, or inclinations of the natural man.
We shall see that, precisely as we become perci-
pient beings, in consequence of the strife between
consciousness and sensation, so do we become moral
beings in consequence of the same act of conscious-
ness exercised against our passions, and the other
imperious wishes or tendencies of our nature. There
is no difference in the mode of antagonism, as it
operates in these two cases ; only, in the one case, it
is directed against what we may call our external,
and, in the other, against what we may call our in-
ternal, modifications. In virtue of the displacement
or sacrifice of our sensations by consciousness, each
of us becomes " I ; " the ego is, to a certain extent,
evolved ; and even here, something of a nascent
morality is displayed ; for every counteraction of the
causality of nature is more or less the development
of a free and moral force. In virtue of the sacrifice
of our passions by the same act, morality is more
fully unfolded ; this " I," that is, our personality, is
more clearly and powerfully realised, is advanced to a
higher potence ; is exhibited in a brighter phase and
more expanded condition.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 209

Thus we shall follow out a clue which has been
too often, if not always, lost hold of in the labyrinths
of philosophy, a clue, the loss of which has made
inquirers represent man as if he lived in distinct1
sections, and were an inorganic agglutination of
several natures, the percipient, the intellectual, and
the moral, with separate principles regulating each.
This clue consists in our tracing the principle of our
moral agency back into the very principle in virtue
of which we become percipient beings ; and in show-
ing that in both cases it is the same act which is
exerted — an act, namely, of freedom or antagonism
against the caused or derivative modifications of our
nature. Thus, to use the language of a foreign
writer, we shall at least make the attempt to cut our
scientific system out of one piece, and to marshal the
frittered divisions of philosophy into that organic
wholeness winch belongs to the great original of
which they profess, and of which they ought to be
the faithful copy ; we mean man himself. In par-
ticular, we trust that the discovery (if such it may
be called) of the principle we have just mentioned,
may lead the reflective reader to perceive the insepar-
able connection between psychology and moral philo-
sophy (we should rather say their essential sameness),
together with the futility of all those mistaken at-
tempts which have been often made to break down

1 "You may understand," says S. T. Coleridge, "by insect, life
in sections." By this he means that each insect has several centres
of vitality, and not merely one ; or that it has no organic unity, or
at least no such decided organic unity as that which man possesses.

0

210 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

their organic unity into the two distinct departments
of " intellectual " and " moral " science.

Another consideration connected with this prin-
ciple is, that instead of being led by it to do what
many philosophers^ in order to preserve their con-
sistency, have done — instead of being led by it to
observe in morality nothing but the features of a
higher self-love, and a more refined sensuality, to-
gether with the absence of free-will ; we are, on the
contrary, led by it to note, even in the simplest act
of perception, an incipient self-sacrifice, the presence
of a dawning will struggling to break forth, and the
aspect of an infant morality beginning to develop
itself. This consideration we can only indicate thus
briefly ; for we must now hurry on to our point.

We are aware of the attempts which have been
made to invest our emotions with the stamp and
attribute of morality ; but, in addition to the testi-
mony of our own experience, we have the highest
authority for holding that none of the natural feel-
ings or modifications of the human heart partake in
any degree of a moral character. We are told by
revelation, and the eye of reason recognises the truth
of the averment, that love itself, that is, natural love,
a feeling which certainly must bear the impress of
morality if any of our emotions do so — we are told
by revelation in emphatic terms that such love has
no moral value or significance whatsoever. "If ye
love them," says our Saviour, " which love you, what
reward have ye? do not even the publicans the

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 211

same ? " To love those who love us is natural love ;
and can any words quash and confound the claim of
such love to rank as a moral excellence or as a moral
development more effectually than these ?

" But," continues the same Divine Teacher, " I say
unto you, Love your enemies;''' obviously meaning,
that in this kind of love, as contradistinguished from
the other, a new and higher element is to be found,
the element of morality, and that this kind of love is
a state worthy of approbation and reward, which the
other is not. Here, then, we find a discrimination
laid down between two kinds of love — love of friends
and love of enemies ; and the hinge upon which this
discrimination turns is, that the character of morality
is denied to the former of these, while it is acceded
to the latter. But now comes the question, Why is
the one of these kinds of love said to be a moral
state or act, and why is the other not admitted to be
so ? To answer this question we must look into the
respective characters and ingredients of these two
kinds of love.

Natural love, that is, our love of our friends, is a
mere affair of temperament, and in entertaining it,
we are just as passive as our bodies are when ex-
posed to the warmth of a cheerful fire. It lies com-
pletely under the causal law ; and precisely as any
other natural effect is produced by its cause, it is
generated and entailed upon us by the love which
our friends bear towards us. It comes upon us un-
sought. It costs us nothing. No thanks to us for

212 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

entertaining it. It is, in every sense of the word, a
passion ; that is to say, nothing of an active character
mingles with the modification into which we have
been moulded. And hence, in harbouring such love,
we make no approach towards rising into the dignity
of free and moral beings.

But the character and groundwork of the other
species of love — of our love, namely, of our enemies
— is widely different from this. Let us ask what is
the exact meaning of the precept, "Love your ene-
mies ? " Does it mean, love them with a natural
love, love them as you love your friends ? Does it
mean, make your love spring up towards those that
hate you, just in the same way, and by the same
natural process as it springs up towards those that
love you ? If it means this, then we are bold
enough to say, that it plainly and palpably incul-
cates an impracticability ; for we are sure that no
man can love his enemies with the same direct
natural love as he loves his friends withal ; if he
ever does love them, it can only be after he has
passed himself through some intermediate act which
is not to be found in the natural emotion of love.
Besides, in reducing this kind of love to the level
of a natural feeling, it would be left as completely
stripped of its character of morality as the other
species is. But Christianity does not degrade this
kind of love to the level of a passion, neither does
it in this, or in any other case, inculcate an imprac-
ticable act or condition of humanity. What, then,

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 213

is the meaning of the precept, Love your enemies ?
What sort of practice or discipline does this text, in
the first instance at least, enforce ? What but this ?
act against your natural hatred of them, resist the
anger you naturally entertain towards them, quell
and subjugate the boiling indignation of your heart.
Whatever subsequent progress a man may make,
under the assistance of divine grace, towards enter-
taining a positive love of his enemies, this negative
step must unquestionably take the precedence ; and
most assuredly such assistance will not be vouch-
safed to him, unless he first of all take the initiative
by putting forth this act of resistance against that
derivative modification of his heart, which, in the
shape of hatred, springs up within him under the
breath of injury and injustice, just as naturally as
noxious reptiles are generated amid the foul air of
a charnel-house.

The groundwork, then, of our love of our enemies,
the feature which principally characterises it, and the
condition which renders it practicable, is an act of
resistance exerted against our natural hatred of them ;
and this it is which gives to that kind of love its
moral complexion. Thus, we see that this kind of
love, so far from arising out of the cherishing or en-
tertaining of a natural passion, does, on the contrary,
owe its being to the sacrifice of one of the strongest
passive modifications of our nature ; and we will
venture to affirm that, without this sacrificial act,
the love of our enemies is neither practicable nor

214 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

conceivable; and if this act does not embody the
whole of such love, it at any rate forms a very im-
portant element in its composition. In virtue of
the tone and active character given to it by this
element, the love of our enemies may be called
moral love, in contradistinction to the love of our
friends, which, on account of its purely passive
character, we have called natural love.

And let it not be thought that this act is one of
inconsiderable moment. It is, indeed, a mighty act,
in the putting forth of which man is in nowise
passive. In this act he directly thwarts, mortifies,
and sacrifices one of the strongest susceptibilities of
his nature. He transacts it in the freedom of an
original activity, and, most assuredly, nature lends
him no helping hand towards its performance. On
the contrary, she endeavours to obstruct it by every
means in her power. The voice of human nature
cries, " By all means, trample your enemies beneath
your feet." " No," says the Gospel of Christ, " rather
tread down into the dust that hatred which impels
you to crush them."

But now comes another question, What is it that,
in this instance, gives a supreme and irreversible
sanction to the voice of the Gospel, rendering this
resistance of our natural hatred of our enemies right,
and our non-resistance of that hatred im*ong ?

We have but to admit that freedom, or, in other
words, emancipation from the thraldom of a foreign
causality, a causality which, ever since the Fall of

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 215

Man, must be admitted to unfold itself in each in-
dividual's ease, in a dark tissue of unqualified evil ;
we have but to admit that the working out of this
freedom is the great end of man, and constitutes his
true self ; and we have also but to admit that what-
ever conduces to the accomplishment of this end is
right ; and the question just broached easily resolves
itself. For, supposing man not to be originally free,
let us ask how is the end of human liberty to be
attained ? Is it to be attained by passively imbib-
ing the various impressions forced upon us from
without ? Is it to be attained by yielding ourselves
up in pliant obedience to the manifold modifications
which stamp their moulds upon us from within ?
Unquestionably not. All these impressions and
modifications constitute the very badges of our slav-
ery. They are the very trophies of the causal con-
quests of nature planted by her on the ground where
the true man ought to have stood, but where he fell.
Now, since human freedom, the great end of man, is
thus contravened by these passive conditions and
susceptibilities of his nature, therefore it is that they
are wrong. And, by the same rule, an act of resist-
ance put forth against them is right, inasmuch as an
act of this kind contributes, every time it is exerted,
to the accomplishment of that great end.

Now, looking to our hatred of our enemies, we see
that this is a natural passion which is most strongly
forced upon us by the tyranny of the causal law;
therefore it tends to obliterate and counteract our

216 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

freedom. But our freedom constitutes our true and
moral selves; it is the very essence of our proper
personality: therefore, to entertain, to yield to this
passion, is wrong, is moral death, is the extinction of
our freedom, of our moral being, however much it
may give life to the natural man. And, by the same
consequence, to resist this passion, to act against it,
to sacrifice it, is right, is free and moral life, however
much this act may give the death -stroke to our
natural feelings and desires.

But how shall we, or how do we, or how can we,
act against our hatred of our enemies ? We answer,
simply by becoming conscious of it. By turning
upon it a reflective eye (a process by no means
agreeable to our natural heart), we force it to faint
and fade away before our glance. In this act we
turn the tables (so to speak) upon the passion, what-
ever it may be, that is possessing us. Instead of its
possessing us, we now possess it. Instead of our
being in its hands, it is now in our hands. Instead
of its being our master, we have now become its ;
and thus is the first step of our moral advancement
taken ; thus is enacted the first act of that great
drama in which demons are transformed into men.
In this act of consciousness, founded, as we have
elsewhere seen, upon will, and by which man be-
comes transmuted from a natural into a moral being,
we perceive the prelude or dawning of that still
higher regeneration which Christianity imparts, and
which advances man onwards from the precincts of

■

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 217

morality into the purer and loftier regions of religion.
We will venture to affirm that this consciousness,
or act of antagonism, is the ground or condition, in
virtue of which that still higher dispensation is
enabled to take effect upon us, and this we shall
endeavour to make out in its proper place. In the
meantime to return to our point : —

In the absence of consciousness, the passion (of
hatred, for instance) reigns and ranges unalloyed,
and goes forth to the fulfilment of its natural issues,
unbridled and supreme. But the moment conscious-
ness comes into play against it, the colours of the
passion become less vivid, and its sway less des-
potic. It is to a certain extent dethroned and sacri-
ficed even upon the first appearance of conscious-
ness ; and if this antagonist manfully maintain its
place, the sceptre of passion is at length completely
wrested from her hands : and thus consciousness is
a moral act, is the foundation-stone of our moral
character and existence.

If the reader should be doubtful of the truth and
soundness of this doctrine, namely, that conscious-
ness (whether viewed in its own unsystematic form,
or in the systematic shape which it assumes when it
becomes philosophy) is an act which of itself tends to
put down the passions, these great, if not sole, sources
of human wickedness ; perhaps he will be willing to
embrace it when he finds it enforced by the power-
ful authority of Dr Chalmers.

" Let there be an attempt," says he, " on the part

218 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

of the mind to study the phenomena of anger, and
its attention is thereby transferred from the cause of
the affection to the affection itself ; and, so soon as
its thoughts are withdrawn from the cause, the affec-
tion, as if deprived of its needful aliment, dies away
from the field of observation. There might be heat
and indignancy enough in the spirit, so long as it
broods over the affront by which they have ori-
ginated. But whenever it proposes, instead of look-
ing outwardly at the injustice, to look inwardly at
the consequent irritation, it instantly becomes cool." 1
We have marked certain of these words in italics,
because in them Dr Chalmers appears to account for
the disappearance of anger before the eye of con-
sciousness in a way somewhat different from ours.
He seems to say that it dies away because " deprived
of its needful aliment," whereas we hold that it dies
away in consequence of the antagonist act of con-
sciousness which comes against it, displacing and
sacrificing it. But, whatever our respective theories
may be, and whichever of us may be in the right, we
agree in the main point, namely, as to the fact that
anger does vanish away in the presence of conscious-
ness ; and therefore this act acquires (whatever
theory we may hold respecting it) a moral character
and significance, and the exercise of it becomes an
imperative duty; for what passion presides over a
wider field of human evil and of human wickedness
than the passion of human wrath ? and, therefore,

1 'Moral Philosophy,' pp. 62, 63.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 219

what act can be of greater importance than the act
which overthrows and pnts an end to its domineering
tyranny ?

The process by which man becomes metamor-
phosed from a natural into a moral being, is pre-
cisely the same in every other case : it is invariably
founded on a sacrifice or mortification of some one or
other of his natural desires, a sacrifice which is in-
volved in his very consciousness of them whenever
that consciousness is real and clear. We have seen
that moral love is based on the sacrifice of natural
hatred. In the same way, generosity, if it would
embody any morality at all, must be founded on the
mortification of avarice or some other selfish passion.
Frugality, likewise, to deserve the name of a virtue,
must be founded on the sacrifice of our natural pas-
sion of extravagance or ostentatious profusion. Tem-
perance, too, if it wrould claim for itself a moral title,
must found on the restraint imposed upon our gross
and gluttonous sensualities. In short, before any
condition of humanity can be admitted to rank as a
moral state, it must be based on the suppression, in
whole or in part, of its opposite. And, finally, cour-
age, if it would come before us invested with a moral
grandeur, must have its origin in the unremitting
and watchful suppression of fear. Let us speak
more particularly of Courage and Fear.

What is natural courage ? It is a passion or
endowment possessed in common by men and by
animals. It is a mere quality of temperament. It

220 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

urges men and animals into the teeth of danger.
But the bravest animals and the bravest men (we
mean such as are emboldened by mere natural cour-
age) are still liable to panic. The game-cock, when
he has once turned tail, cannot be induced to renew
the fight ; and the hearts of men, inspired by mere
animal courage, have at times quailed and sunk
within them, and, in the hour of need, this kind of
courage has been found to be a treacherous passion.

But what is moral courage ? What is it but the
consciousness of Fear ? Here it is that the struggle
and the triumph of humanity are to be found. Nat-
ural courage faces danger, and perhaps carries itself
triumphantly through it, perhaps not. But moral
courage faces fear, and in the very act of facing it
puts it down : and this is the kind of courage in
which we would have men put their trust; for if
fear be vanquished, what becomes of danger ? It
dwindles into the very shadow of a shade. It is a
historical fact (to mention which will not be out of
place here), that nothing but the intense conscious-
ness of his own natural cowardice made the great
Duke of Marlborough the irresistible hero that he
was. This morally brave man was always greatly
agitated upon going into action, and used to say,
" This little body trembles at what this great soul is
about to perform." About this great soul we know
nothing, and therefore pass it over as a mere figure of
speech. But the trembling of " this little body," that
is, the cowardice of the natural man, or, in other

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 221

words, his want of courage, in so far as courage is a
mere affair of nerves, was a fact conspicuous to all.
Equally conspicuous and undeniable was the anta-
gonism put forth against this nervous bodily trepida-
tion. And what was this antagonism ? What but
the struggle between consciousness and cowardice ?
a struggle by and through which the latter was
dragged into light and vanquished; and then the
hero went forth into the thickest ranks of danger,
strong in the consciousness of his own weakness, and
as if out of very spite of the natural coward that
wished to hold him back, and who rode shaking in
his saddle as he drove into the hottest of the fight.
Natural courage, depending upon temperament, will
quail at times, and prove faithless to its trust ; the
strongest nerves will often shake, in the hour of dan-
ger, like an aspen in the gale ; but what conceivable
terrors can daunt that fortitude (though merely of
a negative character), that indomitable discipline,
wherewith a man, by a stern and deliberate con-
sciousness of his own heart's frailty, meets, crushes,
and subjugates, at every turn, and in its remotest
hold, the entire passion of fear ?

Human strength, then, has no positive character
of its own ; it is nothing but the clear consciousness
of human weakness. Neither has human morality
any positive character of its own ; it is nothing but
the clear consciousness of human wickedness. The
whole rudiments of morality are laid before us, if we
will but admit the fact (for which we have Scripture

222 THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

warrant) that all the given modifications of humanity
are dark and evil, and that consciousness (which is
not a given phenomenon, but a free act) is itself, in
every instance, an acting against these states. Out
of this strife morality is breathed up like a rainbow
between the sun and storm. Moreover, by adopting
these views, we get rid of the necessity of postulating
a moral sense, and of all the other hypothetical sub-
sidies to which an erroneous philosophy has recourse
in explaining the phenomena of man. Our limits at
present prevent us from illustrating this subject more
fully ; but in our next number we shall show how
closely our views are connected with the approved
doctrine of man's natural depravity. In order to pene-
trate still deeper into the secrets of consciousness, we
shall discuss the history of the Fall of Man, and shall
show what mighty and essential parts are respect-
ively played by the elements of good and evil in the
realisation of human liberty ; and we shall conclude
our whole discussion by showing how consonant our
speculations are with the great scheme of Christian
Revelation.

PART VII.

CHAPTEE I.

The argument, in the foregoing part of our discussion
(in which we showed that morality is grounded in
an antagonism carried on between our nature and
our consciousness), is obviously founded on the
assumption that man is born in weakness and de-
pravity. We need hardly, nowadays, insist on the
natural sinfulness of the human heart, which we are
told by our own, and by all recorded experience, as
well as by a higher authority than that of man, is
desperately wicked, and runneth to evil continually.
Deplorable as this fact is, deplorably also and pro-
fusely has it been lamented. We are not now,
therefore, going to swell this deluge of lamentations.
Instead of doing so, let us rather endeavour to review
dispassionately the fact of our naturally depraved
condition, in order to ascertain, if possible, the pre-
cise bearing which it has on the development and

224 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

destiny of our species, and at the same time to carry
ourselves still deeper into the philosophy of human
consciousness.

To do good and sin not, is the great end of man ;
and, accordingly, we find him at his first creation
stored with every provision for well-doing. But that
this is his great end can only be admitted with the
qualification that it is to do good freely ; for every
being which is forced to perforin its allotted task is
a mere tool or machine, whether the work it performs
be a work of good or a work of evil. If, therefore,
man does good by the compulsion of others, or under
the constraining force of his own natural biases, he
is but an automaton, and deserves no more credit
for his actings than a machine of this kind does ;
just as he is also an automaton if he be driven into
courses of evil by outward forces which he cannot
resist, or by the uncontrollable springs of his own
natural framework. But man will be admitted, by
all right thinkers, to be not a mere automaton. But
then, according to the same thinkers, man is a
created being ; and, therefore, the question comes to
be, how can a created being be other than an auto-
maton ? Creation implies predetermination, and pre-
determination implies that all the springs and biases
of the created being tend one way (the way predeter-
mined), and that it has no power of its own to turn
them into any other than this one channel, whatever
it may be. How, then, is it possible for such a
being to do either good or evil freely, or to act other-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 225

wise than it was born and predetermined to act ?
In other words, the great problem to be worked out
is, How is man to come to accomplish voluntarily the
great end (of doing good, of well-doing) which he
originally accomplished under comjndsion, or in obe-
dience to the springs of his natural constitution ?

We undertake to show that the living demonstra-
tion of this great problem is to be found in the actual
history of our race; that the whole circuit of hu-
manity, from the creation of the world until the day
when man's final account shall be closed, revolves
for no other purpose than to bring human nature to
do freely the very same work which it originally per-
formed ivitlwut freedom ; and that this problem could
not possibly have been worked out by any other
steps than those actually taken to resolve it. This
shall be made apparent, by our showing, that in the
actual development of the consciousness of our spe-
cies, two distinct practical stages or articulations are
to be noted: the first being an act of antagonism
put forth by man against his paradisiacal or perfect
nature, bringing along with it the Fall (this is consci-
ousness in its antagonism against good) ; the second
being an act of antagonism put forth by man against
his present or fallen nature, issuing in the Eedemp-
tion of the world through our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, and the restoration of man to the prim-
itive condition of perfection which he had abjured
(this is consciousness in its antagonism against evil).
The practical solution of the problem of Human

226 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

Liberty, will be seen to be given in the development
of these two grand epochs of consciousness.

In the first place, then, let us contemplate man in
his paradisiacal state. Here we find him created
perfect by an all -perfect God, and living in the
garden of Eden, surrounded by everything that
can minister to his comfort and delight. Truly the
lines are fallen to him in pleasant places; and, fol-
lowing his natural biases, his whole being runs along
these lines in channels of pure happiness and un-
alloyed good ; good nameless, indeed, and inconceiv-
able, because as yet uncontrasted with evil, but there-
fore, on that very account, all the more perfect and
complete. He lies absorbed and entranced in his
own happiness and perfection ; and no consciousness,
be it observed, interferes to break up their blessed
monopoly of him. He lives, indeed, under the strict-
est command that this jarring act be kept aloof. He
has no personality : the personality of the paradisia-
cal man is in the bosom of his Creator.

Now, however enviable this state of things may
have been, it is obvious that, so long as it continued,
no conceivable advance could be made towards the
realisation of human liberty. Without a personality,
without a self, to which his conduct might be referred,
it is plain that man could not possess any real or
intelligible freedom. All his doings must, in this
case, fall to be refunded back out of him into the
great Being who created him, and out of whom they
really proceeded : and thus man must be left a mere

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 227

machine, inspired and actuated throughout by the
divine energies.

But, upon the slightest reflection, it is equally obvi-
ous that man could not possibly realise his own per-
sonality without being guilty of an evil act, an act
not referable unto God, a Being out of whom no evil
thing can come ; an act in which the injunctions of
the Creator must be disobeyed and set at nought:
He could not, we say, realise his own personality
without sinning; because his personality is realised
through the act of consciousness ; and the act of
consciousness is, as we have all along seen, an act
of antagonism put forth against whatsoever state or
modification of humanity it comes in contact with.
Man's paradisiacal condition, therefore, being one of
supreme goodness and perfection, could not but be
deteriorated by the presence of consciousness. Con-
sciousness, if it is to come into play here, must be
an act of antagonism against this state of perfect
holiness, an act displacing it, and breaking up its
monopoly, in order to make room for the independent
and rebellious "I." In other words, it must be an
act curtailing and subverting good, and therefore,
of necessity, an evil act. Let us say, then, that this
act was really performed, that man thereby realised
his own personality : and what do we record in such
a statement but the fact of man's "first disobedi-
ence" and his Fall?

The realisation of the first man's personality being
thus identical with his fall, and his fall being brought

228 AX INTRODUCTION TO THE

about by a free act, an act not out of, but against
God ; let us now ask how man stands in relation
to the great problem, the working out of which we
are superintending, Human Liberty. Has the Fall
brought along with it the complete realisation of his
freedom ? By no means. He has certainly realised
his own personality by becoming conscious of good.
He has thus opposed himself to good, and performed
an act which he was not forced or predetermined by
his Maker to perforin. He has thus taken one step
towards the attainment of Liberty: one step, and
that is all. The paradisiacal man has evolved one
epoch in the development of human consciousness ;
and has thus carried us on one stage in the practical
solution of the problem we are speaking of. Being
born good and perfect, he has developed the antag-
onism of consciousness against goodness and perfec-
tion; and thus he has emancipated the human race
from the causality of goodness and perfection.

But this antagonism against good, though it freed
the human race from the causality of holiness, laid it
at the same time under the subjection of a new and
far bitterer causality, the causality of sin. For the
consciousness of good, or, in other words, an act of
antagonism against good, is itself but another name
for sin or evil: and thus evil is evolved out of the
very act in which man becomes conscious of good.
And this is the causality under which we, the chil-
dren of Adam, find ourselves placed. As he was
born the child of goodness and of God, so are we,

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 229

through his act, born children of sin and of the
devil.

Therefore the evolution of the second epoch in the
practical development of consciousness devolves upon
us, the fallen children of Humanity. Just as the
paradisiacal man advanced us one stage towards
liberty, by developing in a free act the antagonism
of consciousness against the good under which he
was born; so is it incumbent upon us to complete
the process by developing the practical antagonism
of consciousness against the evil of our natural con-
dition. As Adam, in the first epoch of consciousness,
worked himself out of good into evil by a free act, so
have we, who live in the second epoch of conscious-
ness, to work ourselves back out of evil into good by
another act of the same kind ; repeating precisely
the same process which he went through, only re-
peating it in an inverted order. He, being born
under the causality of good, transferred himself over
by a free act (the antagonism of consciousness against
good) to the causality of evil, and thus proved that
he was not forced to the performance of good. We,
on the other hand, who are born under the causality
of evil, have to transfer ourselves back by another
free act, the antagonism of consciousness against
evil, into the old causality of good ; and thus prove
that we are not forced to the commission of evil.
Adam broke up the first causality — the causality of
good ; and emancipated our humanity therefrom, in
making it thus violate the natural laws and condi-

230 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

tions of its birth. But in doing so he laid it under a
second and dire causality, the causality of sin ; and
this is the causality under which we are born. "When-
ever, therefore, we too have trampled on the laws and
conditions of our natural selves ; have striven, by an
act of resistance against evil, to return into the bosom
of good, to replace ourselves under the old causality
of holiness, to take up such a position that the in-
fluences of Christianity may be enabled to tell upon
our hearts, in short, have violated our causality just
as Adam violated his; then may the problem of
human liberty be said to be practically resolved, for
there are no conceivable kinds of causality except
those of evil and of good, and both of these shall
have then been broken through in the historical de-
velopment of our species.

And here, let it be observed, that although, in put-
ting forth this act of resistance against evil, we return
under the old causality of good, and thus make our-
selves obedient to its influences, yet the relation in
whicli we stand towards that causality is very differ-
ent from the relation in which the first man stood
towards it. He had good forced upon him ; tve have
forced ourselves upon it by a voluntary submission ;
and in this kind of submission true freedom consists ;
because, in making it, the initiative movement origin-
ates in our own wills, in an act of resistance put forth
against the evil that encounters us in our natural
selves, whichever way we turn ; and thus, instead of
this kind of causality exercising a strictly causal force

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 231

upon us, we, properly speaking, are the cause by
which it is induced to visit and operate upon us at all.
" From the days of John the Baptist until now, the
kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent
take it by force : " that is to say, it does not take them
by force ; it does not force itself causally upon us.
On the contrary, we must force ourselves upon it by
our own efforts, and, as it were, wring from an All-
merciful God that grace which even He cannot and
will not grant, except to our oivn most earnest impor-
tunities.

Would we now look back into the history of our
kind, in order to gather instances of that real opera-
tion of consciousness which we have been speaking
of ? Then what was the whole of the enlightened
jurisprudence, and all the high philosophy of anti-
quity, but so many indications of consciousness in
its practical antagonism against human depravity ?
What is justice, that source and concentration of all
law ? Is it a natural growth or endowment of hu-
manity ? Has it, in its first origin, a positive charac-
ter of its own ? No; there is no such thing as natural
or born justice among men. Justice is nothing but
the consciousness of our own natural injustice, this
consciousness being, in its very essence, an act of re-
sistance against the same. Do the promptings of
nature teach us to give every man his due ? No ;
the promptings of nature teach us to keep to our-
selves all that we can lay our hands upon ; therefore
it is only by acting against the promptings of nature

232 AX INTKODUCTION TO THE

that we can deal justly towards our fellow-men. But
we cannot act against these promptings without be-
ing conscious of them, neither can we be conscious of
them without acting against them to a greater or a
less extent ; and thus consciousness, or an act of an-
tagonism put forth against our natural selfishness, lies
at the root of the great principle upon which all justice
depends, the principle mum cuique tribuendi. There-
fore, in every nation of antiquity in which wise and
righteous laws prevailed, they prevailed not in con-
sequence of any natural sense or principle of justice
among men, but solely in consequence of the act of
consciousness, which exposed to them the injustice
and selfish passions of their own hearts, and, in the
very exposure, got the better of them.

If we look, too, to the highest sects of ancient
philosophy, what do we behold but the development
of consciousness in its antagonism against evil, and
an earnest striving after something better than any-
thing that is born within us ? What was the whole
theoretical and practical Stoicism of antiquity ? Was
it apathy, in the modern sense of that word, that
this high philosophy inculcated ? Great philosophers
have told us that it was so. But oh ! doctrine lament-
ably inverted, traduced, and misunderstood ! The
" apathy " of ancient Stoicism was no apathy in our
sense of the word ; it was no inertness, no sluggish
insensibility, no avoidance of passion, and no folding
of the hands to sleep. But it was the direct reverse
of all this. It was, and it inculcated, an eternal war

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 233

to be waged by the sleepless consciousness of every
man against the indestructible demon passions of his
own heart. The airaSeia of Stoicism was an energetic
acting against passion ; and, if our word apathy
means this, let us make use of it in characterising
that philosophy. But we apprehend that our word
apathy signifies an indifference, a passiveness, a list-
less torpidity of character, which either avoids the
presence of the passions, or feels it not ; in short, an
unconsciousness of passion, a state diametrically op-
posed to the apathy of Stoicism, which consists in
the most vital consciousness of the passions, and
their consequent subjugation thereby. It has been
thought, too, that Stoicism aimed at the annihilation
of the passions ; but it is much truer to say, that it
took the strife between them and consciousness, as
the focus of its philosophy; it found true manhood
concentrated in this strife, and it merely placed true
manhood where it found it, for it saw clearly that the
only real moral life of humanity is breathed up out
of that seething and tempestuous struggle.

The passions are sure to be ever with us. Do
what we will,

" They pitch their tents before us as we move,
Our hourly neighbours."

Therefore, the only question comes to be, Are we to
yield to them, or are we to give them battle and re-
sist them ? And Stoicism is of opinion that we should
give them battle. Her voice is all for war ; because,
in yielding to them, our consciousness, or the act

234 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

which constitutes our peculiar attribute, and brings
along with it our proper and personal existence, is
obliterated or curtailed.

The Epicureans sailed upon another tack. The
Stoics sought to reproduce good, by first overthrow-
ing evil ; the only method, certainly, by which sucl
a reproduction is practicable. They sought to builc
the Virtues upon the suppression of the Vices, th(
only foundation which experience tells us is not
liable to be swept away. But their opponents ii
philosophy went more directly to work. They aimec
at the same end, the reproduction of good, without
however, adopting the same means of securing it
that is to say, without ever troubling themselve
about evil at all. They sought to give birth to Lovt
without having first laid strong bonds upon Hatred.
They strove to establish Justice on her throne, with-
out having first deposed and overthrown Injustice
They sought to call forth Charity and Generosity,
without having first of all beaten down the hydra-
heads of Selfishness. In short, they endeavoured
bring forward, in a direct manner, all the amiable
qualities (as they were supposed to be) of the hu-
man heart, without having gone through the in-
termediate process of displacing and vanquishing
their opposites through the act of consciousness.
And the consequence was just what might have
been expected. These amiable children of nature,
so long as all things went as they wished, were
angels; but, in the hour of trial, they became the

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 235

worst of fiends. Long as the sun shone, their love
basked beautiful beneath it, and wore smiles of
eternal constancy; but when the storm arose, then
Hatred, which had been overlooked by Consciousness,
arose also, and the place of Love knew it no more.
Justice worked well so long as every one got what
he himself wanted. But no sooner were the desires
of any man thwarted, than Injustice, which Con-
sciousness had laid no restraint upon, stretched out
her hand and snatched the gratification of them ;
while Justice (to employ Lord Bacon's1 metaphor)
went back into the wilderness, and put forth nothing
but the blood-red blossoms of Bevenge. Generosity
and Charity, so long as they were uncrossed and put
to no real sacrifice, played their parts to perfection ;
but so soon as any unpleasant occasion for their
exercise arose, then the selfish passions, of which
Consciousness had taken no note, broke loose, and
Charity and Generosity were swept away by an
avalanche of demons.

Such has invariably been the fate of all those Epi-
curean attempts to bring forward and cultivate Good
as a natural growth of the human heart, instead of
first of all endeavouring to realise it as the mere
extirpation of evil ; and hence we see the necessity
of adopting the latter method of procedure. Every
attempt to establish or lay hold of good by leaving
evil out of our account, by avoiding it, by remaining
unconscious of it, by not bringing it home to ourselves,

1 Lord Bacon calls revenge a species of wild jicstice.

:

he

236 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

must necessarily be a failure ; and, sooner or later, a
day of fearful retribution is sure to come, for the pas-
sions are real madmen, and consciousness is thei
only keeper; but man's born amiabilities are bi
painted masks, which (if consciousness has never oc
cupied its post) are liable to be torn away from th<
face of his natural corruption, in any dark hour in
which the passions may choose to break up from the
dungeons of the heart.

The true philosopher is well aware that the gates
of paradise are closed against him for ever upon
earth. He does not, therefore, expend himself in a
vain endeavour to force them, or to cultivate into a
false Eden the fictitious flowers of his own deceitful
heart ; but he seeks to compensate for this loss, and
to restore to himself in some degree the perfected
image of his Creator, by sternly laying waste, through
consciousness, the wilderness of his own natural de-
sires ; for he well knows, that wherever he has extir-
pated a weed, there, and only there, will God plant a
flower, or suffer it to grow. But the Epicurean, or
false philosopher, makes a direct assault upon the
gates of paradise itself. He seeks to return straight
into the arms of good, without fighting his way through
the strong and innumerable forces of evil. He would
reproduce the golden age, without directly confront-
ing and resisting the ages of iron and of brass. By
following the footsteps of nature, he imagines that he
may be carried back into the paradise from which his
forefather was cast forth. But, alas ! it is not thus

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 237

that the happy garden is to be won ; for, " at the east
of the garden of Eden," hath not God placed " cheru-
bims, and a flaming sword which turns every way, to
keep the way of the tree of life " ? and, therefore, the
Epicurean is compelled, at last, to sink down, outside
the trenches of paradise, into an inert and dreaming
sensualist.

238 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

CHAPTER II.

Neither overrating nor underrating the pretensions
of philosophy, let us now, as our final task, demon-
strate the entire harmony between her and the scheme
of Christian revelation. Philosophy has done much
for man, but she cannot do everything for him ; she
cannot convert a struggling act (consciousness in its
antagonism against evil) — she cannot convert this act
into a permanent and glorified substance. She can
give the strife, but she cannot give the repose. This
Christianity alone can give. But neither can Chris-
tianity do everything for man. She, too, demands
her prerequisites ; she demands a true consciousness
on the part of man of the condition in which he
stands. In other words, she demands, on man's own
part, a perception of his own want or need of her
divine support. This support she can give him,
but she cannot give him a sense of his own need of
it. This philosophy must supply. Here, therefore,
Christianity accepts the assistance of philosophy ;
true though it be, that the latter, even in her highest
and most exhaustive flight, only brings man up to the

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 239

point at which religion spreads her wings, and carries
him on to a higher and more transcendent elevation.
Her apex is the basis of Christianity. The highest
round in the ladder of philosophy is the lowest in
the scale of Christian grace. All that true philoso-
phy can do, or professes to do, is merely to pass man
through the preparatory discipline of rendering him
conscious of evil, that is, of the only thing of which
he can be really conscious on this earth ; and thus to
place him in such a position as may enable the influ-
ences of loftier truth, and of more substantial good,
to take due effect upon his heart. The discipline of
philosophy is essentially destructive, that of Chris-
tianity is essentially constructive. The latter busies
herself in the positive reproduction of good ; but only
after philosophy has, to a certain extent, prepared the
ground for her, by putting forth the act of conscious-
ness, and by thus executing her own negative task,
which consists in the resistance of evil. Christianity
re-impresses us with the positive image of God which
we had lost through the Fall ; but philosophy, in the
act of consciousness, must first, to a greater or a less
extent, have commenced a defacement of the features
of the devil stamped upon our natural hearts, before
we can take on, in the least degree, the impress of
that divine signature.

Such, we do not fear to say, is the preliminary dis-
cipline of man, which Christianity demands at the
hands of philosophy. But there are people who
imagine that the foundation-stone of the whole Chris-

240 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

tian scheme consists in this : that man can, and must,
do nothing for himself. Therefore, let us speak a few
words in refutation of this paralysing doctrine.

Do not the Scriptures themselves say, " Ask, and it
shall be given unto you " ? Here, then, we find asking
made the condition of our receiving ; and hence it is
plain that we are not to receive this asking ; for sup-
posing that we do receive it, then this can only be
because we have complied with the condition annexed
to our receiving it ; or, in other words, it can only be
because we have practised an anterior asking in order
to obtain the asking which has been vouchsafed to
us. Therefore this asking must ultimately, according
to the very first requisitions of Christianity, fall to be
considered as our own act; and now, then, we put
the question to those who maintain the doctrine just
stated : Must we not " ask," must not this " asking "
be our own deed, and do you call this doing nothing
for ourselves ? In the same way does not the Gospel
say, " Seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you " ? evidently holding forth seeking as
the condition of our finding, and knocking as the con-
dition upon which " it shall be opened." And, now,
must not this " seeking " and this " knocking " be
done by ourselves ? and if they must, what becomes
of the doctrine that man can do nothing, and must
attempt to do nothing, for himself ?

This doctrine that we can do nothing for ourselves
is based upon an evident oversight and confusion of
thought in the mind of the espousers of it. " Attempt

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 241

no toil of your own," say these inert disciplinarians
of humanity, "but seek ye the kingdom of heaven
in the revealed word of God, and there ye shall find
it with all its blessings." True; but these teach-
ers overlook the fact that there are two distinct
questions, and two distinct tasks, involved in this
precept of "seeking the kingdom of heaven." To
some people, the injunction, " Seek for it faithfully,
and ye shall find it in the Scriptures," may be suffi-
cient. But others, again (and we believe the gene-
rality of men are in this predicament), may require,
first of all, to be informed about a very different mat-
ter, and may be unable to rest satisfied until they
have obtained this information: they may demand,
namely, an answer to a new question, But where shall
we find the seeking of the kingdom of heaven ? Be-
fore finding itself, we must know how, and where,
and in what way, we are to find the seeking of it ; for
that is the great secret which eludes and baffles our
researches.

The only answer that can be given to these querists
is, You must find the seeking of it in yourselves. The
Bible reveals to us the kingdom of heaven itself ; but
philosophy it is that leads us to the discovery of our
own search after it. To this discovery philosophy
leads us, by teaching us to know ourselves, by teach-
ing us what we really are. And what does philo-
sophy teach us respecting ourselves ? Does she
teach us that we stand in a harmonious relation to-
wards the universe around us ; towards the universe

Q

242 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

within us; towards the world of our own passions
and desires ; towards the strength or the weaknesses
(be they which they may) of our own flesh and
blood ? And does she thus show us that the life of
man here below is a life of blessedness and repose ?
No ! on the contrary, she shows us that our very act
of consciousness, on the one hand ; and, on the other
hand, all the natural laws and conditions under
which we are born, stand in a relation of diametrical
discord towards each other : that we are made up of
passions and susceptibilities, every one of which is
thwarted and condemned in our very consciousness
of it: that "there is a law in our members" (the
causal law) " warring against the law in our minds "
(the law of will, of freedom, of consciousness) ; and
that the war between these two laws is one which
no truce, brought about by human diplomacy, can
ever still. For though consciousness may act against
evil, yet it can never change the mere resistance of
evil into a positive body of good. Consciousness
may resist wrath, but it cannot convert this resist-
ance of wrath into a positive peaceful-mindedness.
Consciousness may resist hatred, but this act can-
not transmute the resistance of hatred into positive
and substantial love. Consciousness may resist
selfishness, but it cannot convert this resistance
of selfishness into a decided and abiding spirit of
charity. This conversion cannot be effected by con-
sciousness or by philosophy, it must be effected by
the intervention of a higher power, building, how-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 243

ever, on the groundwork which consciousness lays
in its antagonism against evil ; and this is what phi-
losophy herself teaches unto man. She shows him,
that so long as our consciousness and our passions
merely are in the field, although it is true that our
regeneration must commence in their strife, yet that
these elements meet together only in a bitter and
interminable struggle, and do not embody of them-
selves any positive issues of good. Thus is he led
by the very strife which philosophy reveals to him,
tearing his being asunder, to feel the necessity under
which he lies of obtaining strength, support, and
repose, from a higher source : thus is he led by phi-
losophy to discover, in the bitter strife between con-
sciousness and his passions, his own importunate
seeking of the kingdom of heaven, as the only means
through whose intervention his struggling and toil-
some acts may be embodied and perpetuated in
glorious and triumphant substances his resistance
of hatred changed by Divine grace into Christian
love, and all his other resistances of evil (mere nega-
tive qualities) transmuted by the power of a celestial
alchemy into positive and substantial virtues.

Thus philosophy brings man up to the points
which Christianity postulates, as the conditions on
which her blessings are to be bestowed. In reveal-
ing to man the strife, which, in the very act of
consciousness, exists between himself and his whole
natural man, philosophy, of course, brings him to
entertain the desire that this strife should be com-

244 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

posed. But the desire that this strife should be
composed, is itself nothing but a seeking of the
kingdom of heaven. It is no desire on man's part to
give up the fight, to abandon the resistance of evil,
but it is a determination to carry this resistance to
its uttermost issues, and then, through Divine assist-
ance, to get this resistance embodied in positive and
enduring good. Thus philosophy having brought
man up to the points so forcibly insisted on by
Christianity, having taught him to " knock," to " ask,"
and to " seek," having explained the grounds of these
prerequisites (which Scripture postulates, but does
not explain), she then leaves him in the hands of
that more effective discipline, to be carried forward
in the career of a brighter and constantly increasing
perfectibility.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 245

CHAPTEE III.

AVe will now conclude, by recapitulating very shortly
the chief points of our whole discussion.

I. Our first inquiry regarded the method to be
adopted, and the proper position to be occupied
when contemplating the phenomena of man, and,
out of that contemplation, endeavouring to construct
a science of ourselves. The method hitherto em-
ployed in psychological research we found to be in
the highest degree objectionable. It is this: the
fact, or act of consciousness, was regarded as the
mere medium through which the phenomena, or
" states of mind," the proper facts of psychology, as
they were thought to be, were observed. Thus con-
sciousness was the point which was looked from,
and not the point which was looked at. The pheno-
mena looked at were our sensations, passions, emo-
tions, intellectual states, &c, which might certainly
have existed without consciousness, although, indeed,
they could not have been knmvn except through that
act. The phenomenon looked from, although tacitly
recognised, was in reality passed over without obser-

246 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

vation; and thus consciousness, the great fact of
humanity, together with all its grounds and conse-
quences, has been altogether overlooked in the study
of man ; while, in consequence of this oversight, his
freedom, will, morality, in short, all his peculiar
attributes, have invariably crumbled into pieces
whenever he has attempted to handle them scien-
tifically.

We trace this erroneous method, this false position,
this neglect of the fact of consciousness, entirely to
the attempts of our scientific men to establish a com-
plete analogy between psychological and physical
research; and, to follow the error to its fountain-
head, we boldly trace it up to a latitude of interpre-
tation given to the fundamental canon of the Bacon-
ian philosophy : " Homo, naturse minister et interpres,
tantum f acit et intelligit quantum de naturae ordine re
vel mente observaverit, nee amplius scit aut potest."

As far as this great rule is held applicable to the
study and science of nature, we admit it to be unex-
ceptionable ; but when we find it so extended in its
application as to include man indiscriminately with
nature, we must pause ; and although this extension
of its meaning should be shown to be in perfect
accordance with the whole spirit of Bacon's writings,
we must venture, in the name of philosophy, and
backed by a more rigorous observation than that
which he or any of his followers contend for, to
challenge its validity, venerable and authoritative
though it be.

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 247

We do not, indeed, assert that this maxim, even
when taken in its utmost latitude, contains anything
which is absolutely false ; but we hope to show
that, in its application to the science of man, and as
a fundamental rule of psychology, it falls very far
short of the whole truth, and is of a very mislead-
ing tendency. If it has acted like fanners upon
the physical sciences, it has certainly fallen like an
extinguisher upon philosophy.

The method laid down in this canon as the only
true foundation of science, is the method of obser-
vation. The question then comes to be: Can this
method be properly applied to the phenomena of
man, in exactly the same sense as it is applied to
the phenomena of nature ? The disciples of Lord
Bacon tell us that it can, and must, if we would con-
struct a true science of ourselves ; but, in opposition
to their opinion, we undertake to show that, in the
case of man, circumstances are evolved, which render
his observation of his own phenomena of a totally
different character from his observation of the pheno-
mena of nature. Let us, then, illustrate the method
of observation, first, in its application to nature;
and, secondly, in its application to man.

We will call nature and her phenomena B, and
we will call the observer A. Now, it is first to be
remarked, that in A there is developed the fact of
A's observation of B : but the proper and sole busi-
ness of A being to observe the phenomena of B, and
A's observation of the phenomena of B not being a

248 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

fact belonging to B, it, of course, does not call for
any notice whatsoever from A. It would be alto-
gether irrelevant for A, when observing the pheno-
mena of B, to observe the fact of his own observa-
tion of these phenomena. Therefore, in the natural
sciences, the fact of A's observation of B is the
point looked from, and cannot become the point
looked at, without a departure being made from the
proper procedure of physics. These sciences, then,
are founded entirely on the method of simple ob-
servation. Observatio simplex is all that is here
practised, and is all that is here necessary ; and,
whenever it shall have been put forth in its fullest
extent, the science of B, or nature, may be con-
sidered complete.

Let us now try how the same method of simple
or physical observation works in its application to
psychology. We will call man and his pheno-
mena A ; and, as man is here the observer as well
as the observed, we must call the observer A too.
Now, it is obvious that in A (man observed) there
are plenty of phenomena present, his sensations,
" states of mind," &c, and that A (man observing)
may construct a sort of science out of these by sim-
ply observing them, just as he constructed the
natural sciences by observing the phenomena of B.
And this is precisely what our ordinary psycholo-
gists have done, adhering to the Baconian canon.
But the slightest reflection will show us that such
a science of man must necessarily be a false one,

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 249

inasmuch as it leaves out of view one of his most
important phenomena. For, as the preceding case
of A and B, so now in the case of A and A, there is
developed the fact of A's observation of A. But this
fact, which in the case of A and B was very pro-
perly overlooked, and was merely considered as the
point to be looked from, cannot here be legitimately
overlooked, but insists most peremptorily upon being
made the point to be looked at ; for the two A's are
not really two, but one and the same ; and, therefore,
A's observation of the phenomena of A is itself a
new phenomenon of A, calling for a new observation.
Thus, while physical observation is simple, philoso-
phical or psychological observation is double. It is
observatio duplex: the observation of observation,
observatio observationis.

Now, we maintain that the disciples of the Ba-
conian school have never recognised this distinction,
or rather have never employed any other than the
method of single observation, in studying the pheno-
mena of man. They have been too eager to observe
everything ever to have thought of duly observing
the fact of observation itself. This phenomenon, by
which everything else was brought under observa-
tion, was itself allowed an immunity from observa-
tion ; and entirely to this laxness or neglect are, in
our opinion, to be attributed all the errors that have
vitiated, and all the obstructions that have retarded
the science of ourselves.

The distinction which we have just pointed out

250 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

between these two kinds of observation, the single
and the double, the physical and the psychological,
is radical and profound. The method to be pursued
in studying nature, and the method to be pursued in
studying man, can now no longer be regarded as the
same. The physical method observes, but the psy-
chological method swings itself higher than this, and
observes observation. Thus psychology, or philo-
sophy properly so called, commences precisely at
the point where physical science ends. When the
phenomena of nature have been observed and classi-
fied, the science of nature is ended. But when the
phenomena of man, his feelings, intellectual, and
other states, have been observed and classified, true
psychology has yet to begin ; we have yet to observe
our observation of these phenomena, this fact con-
stituting, in our opinion, the only true and all-com-
prehensive fact which the science of man has to deal
with ; and only after it has been taken up and faith-
fully observed, can philosophy be said to have com-
menced.

Further, the divergence which, in consequence of
this distinction, takes place at their very first step,
between psychological and physical science, is pro-
digious. In constructing the physical sciences, man
occupies the position of a mere observer. It is true
that his observation of the phenomena of nature is
an act, and that so far he is an agent as well as an
observer ; but as this act belongs to himself, and as
he has here no business with any phenomena except

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 251

those belonging to nature, he cannot legitimately
take any notice of this agency. But in constructing
a science of himself man occupies more than the
position of a mere observer, for his observation of
his own phenomena is an act, and as this act belongs
to himself whom he is studying, he is bound to
notice it ; and, moreover, as this act of observation
must be performed before it can be observed, man is
thus compelled to be an agent before he is an ob-
server ; or, in other words, must himself act or create
the great phenomenon which he is to observe. This
is what he never does in the case of the physical
sciences ; the phenomena here observed are entirely
attributable to nature. Man has nothing to do with
their creation. In physics, therefore, man is, as we
have said, a mere observer. But in philosophy he
has first of all to observe his own phenomena (this
he does in the free act of his ordinary conscious-
ness): he thus creates by his own agency a new
fact, the fact, namely, of his observation of these
phenomena; and then he has to subject this new
fact to a new and systematic observation, which
may be called the reflective or philosophic con-
sciousness.

The observation of our own natural phenomena
(observatio simplex) is the act of consciousness ; the
observation of the observation of our own pheno-
mena {observatio duplex), or, in other words, the
observation of consciousness, is philosophy. Such
are our leading views on the subject of the method

252 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

of psychology, as contradistinguished from the me-
thod of physical science.

II. The act of consciousness, or the fact of our
observation of our own natural modifications, having
been thus pointed out as the great phenomena to
be observed in psychology, we next turned our
attention to the contents and origin of this act,
subdividing our inquiry into three distinct ques-
tions: When does consciousness come into manifes-
tation ? How does it come into manifestation ? and,
What are the consequences of its coming into mani-
festation ?

III. In discussing the question, When does con-
sciousness come into manifestation ? we found that
man is not born conscious; and that therefore con-
sciousness is not a given or ready-made fact of
humanity. In looking for some sign of its mani-
festation, we found that it has come into operation
whenever the human being has pronounced the word
" I," knowing what this expression means. This
word is a highly curious one, and quite an anomaly,
inasmuch as its true meaning is utterly incommuni-
cable by one being to another, endow the latter with
as high a degree of intelligence as you please. Its
origin cannot be explained by imitation or associa-
tion. Its meaning cannot be taught by any con-
ceivable process; but must be originated absolutely
by the being using it. This is not the case with any
other form of speech. For instance, if it be asked
what is a table ? a person may point to one and say,

r

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 253

" that is a table." But if it be asked, what does " I "
mean ? and if the same person were to point to him-
self and say, " this is '. I,' " this would convey quite
a wrong meaning, unless the inquirer, before putting
the question, had originated within himself the no-
tion " I," for it would lead him to suppose, and to
call that other person " I." This is a strange para-
dox,- but a true one ; that a person would be consid-
ered mad, unless he applied to himself a particular
name, which if any other person were to apply to
him, he would be considered mad.

Neither are we to suppose that this word " I " is a
generic word, equally applicable to us all, like the
word " man " ; for, if it were, then we should all be
able to call each other " I," just as we can all call
each other with propriety "man."

Further, the consideration of this question, by con-
ducting us to inquiries of a higher interest, and of a
real significance, enables us to get rid of most or all
of the absurd and unsatisfactory speculations con-
nected with that unreal substance which nobody
knows anything about, called "mind." If mind
exists at all, it exists as much when man is born as
it ever does afterwards; therefore, in the develop-
ment of mind, no new form of humanity is evolved.
But no man is born " I " ; yet, after a time, every
man becomes "I." Here, then, is a new form of
humanity displayed ; and, therefore, the great ques-
tion is, What is the genesis of this new form of man ?
What are the facts of its origin ? How does it come

254 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

into manifestation ? Leave " mind " alone, ye meta-
physicians, and answer ns that.

IV. It is obvious that the new form of humanity,
called " I," is evolved out of the act of consciousness ;
and this brings us to the second problem of our
inquiry, How is the act itself of consciousness evolv-
ed ? A severe scrutiny of the act of consciousness
showed us, that this act, or, in other words, that • our
observation of our own phenomena, is to a certain
extent a displacement or suspension of them; that
these phenomena (our sensations, passions, and other
modifications) are naturally of a monopolising ten-
dency ; that is to say, they tend to keep us ^con-
scious, to engross us with themselves : while, on the
contrary, consciousness or our observation of them,
is of a contrary tendency, and operates to render us
wTisentient, ?mpassionate, &c. We found, from con-
sidering facts, that consciousness on the one hand,
and all our natural modifications on the other, existed
in an inverse ratio to one another ; that wherever the
natural modification is plus, the consciousness of it
is minus, and vice versa. We thus found that the
great law regulating the relationship between the
conscious man (the " I ") and the natural man was
the law of antagonism;1 and thus consciousness

1 Our leading tenet may be thus contrasted with those of some
other systems in a very few words. The Lockian School teaches,
that man becomes conscious, or "I,"m consequence of his sensa-
tions, passions, and other modifications ; the Platonic and Kantian
Schools teach that man becomes "I, "not in consequence, but by
occasion, of his sensations, passions, &c. ; and this is true, but not

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 255

was found to be an act of antagonism ; or (in order
to render our deduction more distinct) we shall
rather say was found to be evolved out of an act
of antagonism put forth against the modifications
of the natural man.

But out of what is this act of antagonism evolved ?
What are its grounds ? Let us consider what it is
put forth against. All man's natural modifications
are derivative, and this act is put forth against all
these natural modifications, there is not one of them
which is not more or less impaired by its presence.
It cannot, therefore, be itself derivative, for if it
were, it would be an acting against itself, which is
absurd. Being, therefore, an act which opposes all
that is derivative in man, it cannot be itself deriva-
tive, but must be underived; that is, must be an
absolutely original, primary, and free act. This act
of antagonism, therefore, is an act of freedom; or,
we shall rather say, is evolved out of freedom. Its
ground and origin is freedom.

But what are the explanatory grounds of freedom ?
"We have but to ascertain what is the great law of
bondage throughout the universe, and, in its opposite,
we shall find the law or grounds of freedom. The

B*

law of bondage throughout the universe is the law
of cause and effect. In the violation, then, of this

the whole truth. According to our doctrine, man becomes "I,"
or a conscious Being, in spite of his sensations, passions, &c. Sen-
sation, &c, exist for the purpose of keeping down consciousness,
and consciousness exists for the purpose of keeping down sensation,
&c. &c.

256 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

law, true freedom must consist. In virtue of what,
then, do we violate this law of bondage or causality ?
In virtue of our human will, which refuses to submit
to the modifications which it would impose upon us.
Human will thus forms the ground of freedom, and
deeper than this we cannot sink. We sum up our
deduction thus : The " I " is evolved out of the act
of consciousness, the act of consciousness is evolved
out of an act of antagonism put forth against all the
derivative modifications of our being: This act of
antagonism is evolved out of freedom ; and freedom
is evolved out of will ; and thus we make will the
lowest foundation-stone of humanity.

Thus have we resolved, though we fear very im-
perfectly, the great problem, How does Consciousness
come into operation ? the law of antagonism, estab-
lished by facts, between the natural and the consci-
ous man, being the principle upon which the whole
solution rests.

V. In discussing the consequences of the act of
consciousness, we endeavoured to show how this act
at once displaces our sensations, and, in the vacant
room, places the reality called " I," which, but for
this active displacement of the sensations, would
have had no sort of existence. We showed that the
complex phenomenon in which this displacing and
placing is embodied, is perception. The " I," there-
fore, is a consequence of the act of consciousness ;
and a brighter phase of it is presented when the state
which the act of consciousness encounters and dis-

PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 257

places is a passion instead of being a sensation. We
showed that morality originates in the antagonism
here put forth. But we have already expressed our-
selves as succinctly and clearly as we are able on
these points ; and, therefore, we now desist from
adding any more touches to this very imperfect Out-
line of the Philosophy of Human Consciousness.

THE

CEISIS OF MODEKN SPECULATION

THE

CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

The great endeavour of philosophy, in all ages, has
been to explain the nature of the connection which
subsists between the mind of man and the external
universe ; but it is to speculation of a very late date
that we owe the only approach that has been made
to a satisfactory solution of this problem. In the
following remarks on the state of modern specula-
tion, we shall attempt to unfold this explanation,
for it forms, we think, the very pith of the highest
philosophy of recent times.

It will be seen that the question is resolved, not so
much by having any positive answer given to it, as
by being itself made to assume a totally new aspect.
We shall find, upon reflection, that it is not what, at
first sight, and on a superficial view, we imagined it
to be. A change will come over the whole spirit of
the question. Facts will arise, forcing it into a new
form, even in spite of our efforts to keep it in its old

262 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

shape. The very understanding of it will alter it
from what it was. It will not be annihilated — it
will not be violently supplanted — but it will be
gradually transformed ; and this transformation will
be seen to arise out of the very nature of thought,
out of the very exercise of reason upon the question.
It will be granted that, before a question can become
a question, it must first of all be conceived. There-
fore, before the question respecting the intercourse
between mind and matter can be asked, it must be
thought. Now, the whole drift of our coming argu-
ment is to show that this question, in the very
thinking of it, necessarily passes into a new question.
And then, perhaps, the difficulty of answering this
new question will be found to be not very great.

This consideration may, perhaps, conciliate for-
bearance at the outset of our inquiry at least. Any
objections levelled against the question as it now
stands, would evidently be premature. For the pre-
sent question is but the mask of another question ;
and unless it be known what that other question is,
why should its shell be thrown aside as an unprofit-
able husk ? Reader ! spare the chrysalis for the sake
of the living butterfly which perhaps may yet spring
from its folds. The transformation we are going to
attempt to describe, forms the most vital crisis in
the whole history of speculation.

It must be kept in mind that our perception of an
external universe is a phenomenon of a profounder
and more vital character than is generally supposed.

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 263

Besides having perceptions, the mind, it is said, is
modified in a hundred other ways : by desires, pas-
sions, and emotions ; and these, it is thought, contri-
bute to form its reality, just as much as the percep-
tion of outward things does. But this is a mistake.
Perception, the perception of an external universe,
is the groundwork and condition of all other mental
phenomena. It is the basis of the reality of mind.
It is this reality itself. Through it, mind is what it
is ; and without it, mind could not be conceived to
exist. Since, therefore, perception is the very life of
man, when we use the word mind in this discussion
we shall understand thereby the percipient being, or
the perceiver. The word mind and the word percip-
ient we shall conside : convertible terms.

The earliest, and, in France and this country, the
still dominant philosophy explains the connection
between mind and matter by means of the relation
of cause and effect. Outward things present to the
senses are the causes of our perceptions, our percep-
tions are the effects of their proximity. " The pres-
ence of an external body," says Dr Brown, " an organic
change immediately consequent on its presence, and
a mental affection ; " these, according to him, form
three terms of a sequence, the statement of which is
thought sufficiently to explain the phenomenon of
perception, and to illustrate the intercourse which
takes place between ourselves and outward objects.

This doctrine is obviously founded on a distinction
laid down between objects as they are in themselves

264 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

and objects as they are in our perceptions of them ;
in other words, between real objects and our percep-
tions of objects. For, unless we made a discrimina-
tion between these two classes, we could have no
ground for saying that the former were the causes
of the latter.

Now, when any distinction is established, the
tendency of the understanding is to render it as
definite, complete, and absolute as it admits of being
made. And, with regard to the present distinction,
the understanding was certainly not idle. It took
especial pains to render this distinction real and
precise; and, by doing so, it prepared a building-
ground for the various philosophical fabrics that
were to follow for many generations. It taught that
the object in itself must be considered something
which stood quite aloof from our perception of it,
that our perception of the object must be considered
something of which the real object formed no part.
Had it been otherwise, the understanding would have
pronounced the discrimination illogical, and conse-
quently null and void.

It was this procedure of the understanding with
respect to the above-mentioned distinction which led
to the universal adoption of a representative theory
of perception. We are far from thinking that any
of its authors adopted or promulgated this doctrine
under that gross form of it against which Dr Reid
and other philosophers have directed their shafts;
under the form, namely, which holds that outward

THE CRISIS OF MODERX SPECULATION. 265

things are represented by little images in the mind.
Unquestionably, that view is a gross exaggeration of
the real opinion. All that philosophers meant was,
that we had perceptions of objects, and that these
perceptions were not the objects themselves. Yet
even this, the least exceptionable form of the theory
that can be maintained, was found sufficient to sub-
vert the foundations of all human certainty.

Here, then, it was that doubts and difficulties be-
gan to break in upon philosophical inquiry. It was
at this juncture that the schism between common
sense and philosophy, which has not yet terminated,
began. People had hitherto believed that they pos-
sessed an immediate or intuitive knowledge of an ex-
ternal universe ; but now philosophers assured them
that no such immediate knowledge was possible. All
that man could immediately know was either the ob-
ject itself, or his perception of it. It could not be both
of these in one, for this explanation of perception was
founded on the admitted assumption that these two
were distinct, and were to be kept distinct. Now, it
could not be the object itself, for man knows the
object only by knowing that he perceives it — in
other words, by knowing his own perception of it ;
and the object and his perception being different, he
could know the former only through his knowledge
of the latter. Hence, knowing it through this vicari-
ous phenomenon, namely, his own perception of it,
he could only know it mediately; and therefore it
was merely his own perceptions of an external uni-

266 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

verse, and not an external universe itself, that he
was immediately cognisant of.

The immediate knowledge of an external universe
being disproved, its reality was straightway called in
question. For the existence of that which is not
known immediately, or as it is in itself, requires to
be established by an inference of reason. Instead,
therefore, of asking, How is the intercourse carried
on between man's mind and the external world ? the
question came to be this, Is there any real external
world at all ?

Three several systems undertook to answer this
question : Hypothetical Realism, which defended
the reality of the universe ; Idealism, which denied
its reality; and Scepticism, which maintained that
if there were an external universe, it must be some-
thing very different from what it appears to us to be.

Hypothetical Eealism was the orthodox creed, and
became a great favourite with philosophers. It ad-
mitted that an outward world could not be immedi-
ately known ; that we could be immediately and
directly cognisant of nothing but our own subjective
states — in other words, of nothing but our perceptions
of this outward world ; but, at the same time, it held
that it must be postulated as a ground whereby to
account for these impressions. This system was de-
signed to reconcile common sense with philosophy,
but it certainly had not the desired effect. The con-
victions of common sense repudiated the decrees of
so hollow a philosophy. The belief which this sys-

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 267

tern aimed at creating was not the belief in which
common sense rejoiced. To the man who thought
and felt with the mass, the universe was no hypo-
thesis, no inference of reason, but a direct reality
which he had immediately before him. His percep-
tion of the universe, that is, the universe as he was
cognisant of it in perception, was, he felt convinced,
the very universe as it was in itself.

Idealism did not care to conciliate common sense ;
but it maintained that if we must have recourse to
an hypothesis to explain the origin of our percep-
tions, it would be a simpler one to say that they
arose in conformity with the original laws of our
constitution, or simply because it was the will of
our Creator that they should arise in the way they
do. Thus, a real external world called into exist-
ence by hypothetical Eealism (no other Eealism was
at present possible), merely to account for our per-
ceptions, was easily dispensed with as a very unne-
cessary encumbrance.

Scepticism assumed various modifications, but the
chief guise in which it sought to outrage the convic-
tions of mankind was, by first admitting the reality
of an external world, and then by proving that this
world could not correspond with our perceptions
of it. Because, in producing these perceptions, its
effects were, of necessity, modified by the nature of
the percipient principle on which it operated ; and
hence our perceptions being the joint result of external
nature and our own nature, they could not possibly

268 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

be true and faithful representatives of the former
alone. They could not but convey a false and per-
verted information. Thus, man's primary convic-
tions, which taught him that the universe was what
it appeared to be, were placed in direct opposition
to the conclusions of his reason, which now informed
him that it must be something very different from
what he took it for.

Thus, in consequence of one fatal and fundamental
oversight, the earlier philosophy was involved in
inextricable perplexities in its efforts to unravel the
mysteries of perception. But we are now approach-
ing times in which this oversight was retrieved, and
in which, under the scrutiny of genuine speculation,
the whole character and bearings of the question
became altered. Its old features were obliterated,
and out of the crucible of thought it came forth
in a new form, a form which carries its solution on
its very front. How has this change been brought
about ?

We have remarked that all preceding systems
were founded on a distinction laid down between
objects themselves and our perception of objects.
And we have been thus particular in stating this
principle, and in enumerating a few of its conse-
quences, because it is by the discovery of a law
directly opposed to it that the great thinkers of
modern times have revolutionised the whole of
philosophy, and escaped the calamitous conclu-
sions into which former systems were precipitated.

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 269

Iii the olden days of speculation, this distinction
was rendered real and absolute by the logical un-
derstanding. The objective and the subjective of
human knowledge (% e., the reality and our per-
ception of it) were permanently severed from one
another; and while all philosophers were disputing
as to the mode in which these twTo could again in-
telligibly coalesce, not one of them thought of ques-
tioning the validity of the original distinction — the
truth of the alleged and admitted separation. Not
one of them dreamt of asking whether it was pos-
sible for human thought really to make and main-
tain this discrimination. It was reserved for the
genius of modern thought to disprove the distinction
in question, or at least to qualify it most materially
by the introduction of a directly antagonist principle.
By a more rigorous observation of facts, modern in-
quirers have been led to discover the radical identity
of the subjective and the objective of human con-
sciousness, and the impossibility of thinking them
asunder. In our present inquiry, we shall restrict
ourselves to the consideration of the great change
which the question regarding man's intercourse with
the external world has undergone, in consequence of
this discovery ; but its consequences are incalcu-
lable, and we know not where they are to end.

In attempting, then, to interpret the spirit of this
new philosophy, we commence by remarking that
the distinction which lay at the foundation of all the
older philosophies is not to be rejected and set aside

270 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

altogether. Unless we made some sort of discrimi-
nation between our perceptions and outward objects,
no consciousness or knowledge would be possible.
This principle is one of the laws of human thought,
one of the first conditions of intelligence. But we
allow it only a relative validity. It gives us but one-
half of the truth. We deny that it is an absolute,
final, and permanent distinction ; and we shall show
that, if by one law of intelligence we constantly sepa-
rate the subject and the object, so by another law
we as constantly blend them into one. If by one
principle of our nature we are continually forced to
make this separation, we are just as continually
forced, by another principle of our nature, to repair
it. It is this latter principle which is now to engage
our research. But here we must have recourse to
facts and illustrations ; for it is only by the aid of
these that we can hope to move in an intelligible
course through so abstruse an investigation.

We shall illustrate our point by first appealing to
the sense of sight. Light or colour is the proper
object of this perception. That which is called, in
the technical language of philosophy, the objective, is
the light; that which is called, in the same phrase-
ology, the subjective, is the seeing. We shall fre-
quently make use of these words in the sense thus
indicated. Now, admitting, in a certain sense, this
discrimination between the objective and subjective
in the case of vision, we shall make it our business
to show that it undoes itself, by each of these terms

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 271

( or extremes necessarily becoming, when thought, both
the subjective and the objective in one.

Let us begin with the consideration of the objec-
tive— light. It is very easy to say that light is not
seeing. But, good reader, we imagine you will be
considerably puzzled to think light without allowing
the thought of seeing to enter into the thinking of
it. Just try to do so. Think of light without think-
ing of seeing ; think the pure object without per-
mitting any part of your subjective nature to be
blended with it in that thought. Attempt to conjure
up the thought of light without conjuring up along
with it in indissoluble union the thought of seeing.
Attempt this in every possible way, then reflect for
a moment ; and as sure as you are a living and per-
cipient being, you will find that, in all your efforts
to think of light, you invariably begin and end in
thinking of the seeing of light. You think of light
by and through the thought of seeing, and you can
think of it in no other way. By no exertion of the
mind can you separate these two. They are not
two, but one. The objective light, therefore, when
thought, ceases to be purely objective; it becomes
both subjective and objective, both light and seeing
in one. And the same truth holds good with regard
to all lighted or coloured objects, such as trees,
houses, &c. ; we can think of these only by thinking
of our seeing of them.

But you will perhaps say that, by leaving the
sunshine, and going into a dark room, you are able

272 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

to effect an actual and practical separation between
these two things, light and seeing. By taking this
step, you put an end to your perception ; but you do
not put an end, you say, to the real objective light
which excited it. The perception has vanished, but
the light remains, a permanent existence outside of
your dark chamber. Now here we must beware of
dogmatising, that is, of speaking either affirmatively
or negatively, about anything, without first of all
having thought about it. Before we can be entitled
to speak of what is, we must ascertain what we
can think. When, therefore, you talk of light as an
outward permanent existence, we neither affirm nor
deny it to be so. We give no opinion at all upon
the matter. All that we request and expect of both
of us is, that we shall think it before we talk of it.
But we shall find that, the moment we think this out-
ward permanent existence, we are forced, by the most
stringent law of our intelligence, to think sight along
with it; and it is only by thinking these two in
inseparable unity, that light can become a conceiv-
ability at all, or a comprehensible thought.

Perhaps you will here remind us that light exists
in many inaccessible regions, where it is neither seen
nor was ever thought of as seen. It may be so ; we
do not deny it. But we answer that, before this
light can be spoken of, it must be thought ; and that
it cannot be thought unless it be thought of as seen,
unless we think an ideal spectator of it; in other
words, unless a subjective be inseparably added unto

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 273

it. Perhaps, again, in order to show that the objec-
tive may be conceived as existing apart from the sub-
jective, you will quote the lines of the poet —

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

We reply that it may be very true that many a
flower is born so to do. We rather admit the fact.
But we maintain that, in order to speak of the fact,
you must think of it; and in order to think of the
fact, you must think of the flower ; and in order to
think of the flower, and of its blushing unseen, you
must think of the seeing of the flower, and of the
seeing of its blushing. All of which shows that here,
as in every other supposable case, it is impossible to
think the objective without thinking the subjective
as its inseparable concomitant, which is the only
point we are at present endeavouring to establish.
It will not do to say that this light may he some-
thing which may exist, outwardly, and independently
of all perception of it, though, in consequence of the
limitation of our faculties, it may not be possible for
us to conceive how, or in what way, its existence is
maintained. Eeader ! put no faith in those who
preach to you about the limited nature of the human
faculties, and of the things which lie beyond their
bounds. For one instance in which this kind of
modesty keeps people right in speculative matters,
there are a thousand in which it puts them wrong ;
and the present case is one of those in which it
endeavours to prevail upon us to practise a gross

274 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

imposition upon ourselves. For this light, which is
modestly talked of as something which lies, or may
lie, altogether out of the sphere of the subjective,
will be found, upon reflection, to be conceived only
by thinking back, and blending inseparably with it
the very subjective (i. e., the seeing) from which it
had been supposed possible for thought to divorce it.

Precisely the same thing holds good in the case of
sound and hearing. Sound is here the objective, and
hearing the subjective ; but the objective cannot be
conceived, unless we comprehend both the subjective
and it in one and the same conception. It is true
that sounds may occur (thunder, for instance, in
lofty regions of the sky) which are never heard;
but we maintain that, in thinking such sounds,
we necessarily think the hearing of them ; in other
words, we think that we ivould have heard them, had
we been near enough to the spot where they occurred,
which is exactly the same thing as imagining our-
selves, or some other percipient being, present at that
spot. We establish an ideal union between them
and hearing. In respect to thought, they are as no-
thing unless thought of as heard. Thus only do we,
or can we, conceive them. Whenever, therefore, the
objective is here thought of, the same ideal and in-
dissoluble union ensues between it and the subjec-
tive, which we endeavoured to show took place
between light and vision, whenever the objective of
that perception was thought of.

The consideration of these two senses, sight and

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 275

hearing, with their appropriate objects, light and
sound, sufficiently explains and illustrates our point.
For what holds good with regard to them, holds
equally good with regard to all our other perceptions.
The moment the objective part of any one of them is
thought, we are immediately constrained by a law of
our nature which we cannot transgress, to conceive
as one with it the subjective part of the perception.
We think objective weight only by thinking the
feeling of weight. We think hardness, solidity, and
resistance, in one and the same thought with touch or
some subjective effort. But it would be tedious to
multiply illustrations ; and our doing so would keep
us back too long from the important conclusion to-
wards which we are hastening. Every illustration,
however, that we could instance would only help to
establish more and more firmly the great truth, that
no species or form of the objective, throughout the
wide universe, can be conceived of at all, unless we
blend with it in one thought its appropriate subjec-
tive— that every objective, when construed to the
intellect, is found to have a subjective clinging to it,
and forming one with it, even when pursued in ima-
gination unto the uttermost boundaries of creation.

Having seen, then, that the objective (the sum of
which is the whole external universe) necessarily be-
comes when thought, both the objective and subjec-
tive in one, we now turn to the other side of the
question, and we ask whether the subjective (the
sum of which is the whole mind of man) does not

276 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

also necessarily convert itself, when conceived, into
the subjective and the objective in one. For the
establishment of this point in the affirmative is ne-
cessary for the completion of our premises. But we
have no fears about the result ; for certainly a simple
reference made by any one to his own consciousness
will satisfy him that, as he could not think of light
without thinking of seeing, or of sound without
thinking of hearing, so now he cannot conceive see-
ing without conceiving light, or hearing without con-
ceiving sound. Starting with light and sound, we
found that these, the objective parts of perception,
became, when construed to thought, both subjective
and objective in one ; so, now, starting with seeing
and hearing, we find that each of these, the subjective
parts of perception, become both subjective and ob-
jective when conceived. For, let us make the attempt
as often as we will, we shall find that it is impossible
to think of seeing without thinking of light, or of
hearing without thinking of sound. Vision is thought
through the thought of light, and hearing through
the thought of sound, and they can be thought in no
other manner, and these two are conceived not as
two but as one.

But is there no such thing as a faculty of seeing,
and a faculty of hearing, which can be thought inde-
pendently of light and sound ? By thinking of these
faculties, are we not enabled to think of hearing and
seeing without thinking of sound and light ? A
great deal, certainly, has been said and written about

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 277

such faculties ; but they are mere metaphysical chi-
meras of a most deceptive character, and it is high
tune that they should be blotted from the pages of
speculation. If, in talking of these faculties, we
merely meant to say that man is able to see and hear,
we should find no fault with them. But they impose
upon us by deceiving us into the notion that we can
think what it is not possible for us to think, namely,
perceptions without their objects — vision without
light, and hearing without sound. Consider, for ex-
ample, what is meant by the faculty of hearing.
There is meant by it — is there not ? — a power or
capacity of hearing, which remains dormant and inert
until excited by the presence of sound ; and which,
while existing in that state, can be conceived without
any conception being formed of its object. But, in
thinking this faculty, are we not obliged to think it
as something which would be excited by sound, if
sound were present to arouse it ; and in order to think
of what is embodied in the words, " would be excited
by sound," are we not constrained to think sound
itself, and to think it in the very same moment, and
in the very same thought, in which we think the
faculty that apprehends it ? In other words, in order
to think the faculty, are we not forced to have re-
course to the notion of the very object which we
professed to have left out of our account in framing
our conception of the faculty ? Most assuredly, the
faculty and the object exist in an ideal unity, which
cannot be dissolved by any exertion of thought.

278 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

Again, perhaps you will maintain that the faculty
of hearing may be thought of as something which
exists anterior to the existence or application of
sound ; and that, being thought of as such, it must
be conceived independently of all conception of its
object, sound being, ex hypothesi, not yet in rerum
natura. But let any one attempt to frame a concep-
tion of such an existence, and he will discover that it
is possible for him to do so only by thinking back in
union with that existence, the very sound which
he pretended was not yet in thought or in being.
Therefore, in this and every other case in which we
commence by thinking the subjective of any per-
ception, we necessarily blend with it the objective
of that perception in one indivisible thought. It is
both of these together which form a conceivability.
Each of them, singly, is but half a thought, or, in
other words, is no thought at all ; is an abstraction,
which may be uttered, but which certainly cannot
be conceived.

We have now completed the construction of our
premises. One or two condensed sentences will show
the reader the exact position in which we stand. Our
intercourse with the external universe was the given
whole with which we had to deal. The older philo-
sophies divided this given whole into the external
universe on the one hand, and our perceptions of it
on the other ; but they were never able to show how
these two, the objective and the subjective, could

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 279

again be understood to coalesce. Like magicians
with but half the powers of sorcery, they had spoken
the dissolving spell which severed man's mind from
the universe, but they were unable to articulate the
binding word which again might bring them into
union. It was reserved for the speculation of a later
day to utter this word. And this it did by admitting
in limine the distinction ; but, at the same time, by
showing that each of the divided members again re-
solves itself into both the factors, into which the
original whole was separated ; and that in this way
the distinction undoes itself, while the subjective and
the objective, each of them becoming both of them in
one thought, are thus restored to their original indis-
soluble unity. An illustration will make this plain.
In treating of mind and matter and their connection,
the old philosophy is like a chemistry which resolves
a neutral salt into an acid and an alkali, and is then
unable to show how these two separate existences
may be brought together. The new philosophy is
like a chemistry which admits, at the outset, the
analysis of the former chemistry, but which then
shows that the acid is again both an acid and an
alkali in one; and that the alkali is again both an
alkali and an acid in one : in other words, that instead
of having, as we supposed, a separate acid and a sepa-
rate alkali under our hand, we have merely two neu-
tral salts instead of one. The new philosophy then
shows that the question respecting perception answers
itself in this way, that there is no occasion for

280 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

thought to explain how that may be united into one,
which no effort of thought is able to put asunder
into two.

By appealing to the facts of our intelligence, then,
we have found that, whenever we try to think what
we heretofore imagined to be the purely objective
part of any perception, we are forced, by an invincible
law of our nature, to think the subjective part of the
perception along with it ; and to think these two not
as two, but as constituting one thought. And we
have also found that, whenever we try to think what
we heretofore imagined to be the purely subjective
part of any perception, we are forced by the same
law of our nature, to think the objective part of the
perception along with it ; and to think these two, not
as two, but as constituting one thought. Therefore
the objective, which hitherto, through a delusion of
thought, had been considered as that which excluded
the subjective from its sphere, was found to embrace
and comprehend the subjective, and to be nothing
and inconceivable without it; while the subjective,
which hitherto, through the same delusion of thought,
had been considered as that which excluded the ob-
jective from its sphere, was found to embrace and
comprehend the objective, and to be nothing and in-
conceivable without it. We have now reached the
very acme of our speculation, and shall proceed to
point out the very singular change which this dis-
covery brings about, with regard to the question with
which we commenced these remarks, the question

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 281

concerning the intercourse between man and the
external universe.

What was hitherto considered the objective, was
the whole external universe ; and what was hitherto
considered the subjective, was the whole percipient
power, or, in other words, the whole mind of man.
But we have found that this objective, or the whole
external universe, cannot become a thought at all,
unless we blend and identify with it the subjective,
or the whole mind of man. And we have also found
that this subjective, or the whole mind of man, can-
not become a thought at all, unless we blend and iden-
tify with it the objective, or the whole external uni-
verse. So that, instead of the question as it originally
stood, What is the nature of the connection which sub-
sists between the mind of man and the external world ?
in other words, between the subjective and the ob-
jective of perception ? the question becomes this,
and into this form it is forced by the laws of the very
thought which thinks it, What is the nature of the
connection which subsists between the mind of man
plus the external, universe on the one hand, and the
mind of m&n plus the external universe on the other?
Or differently expressed, What is the connection be-
tween mind-and-matter (in one), and mind-and-matter
(in one) ? Or differently still, What is the connection
between the subjective subject-object and the objec-
tive subject-object ?

This latter, then, is the question really asked. This
is the form into which the original question is changed,

282 THE CKISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

by the very laws and nature of thought. We used
no violence with the question, we made no effort to
displace it, that we might bring forward the new
question in its room ; we merely thought it, and this
is the shape which it necessarily assumed. In this
new form the question is still the same as the one
originally asked ; the same, and yet how different !

But though this is the question really asked, it is
not the one which the asker really wished or expected
to get an answer to. No ; what he wished to get ex-
plained was the nature of the connection between
what was heretofore considered the subjective, and
what was heretofore considered the objective part of
perception. Now, touching this point, the following
is the only explanation which it is possible to give
him. Unless we are able to think two things as two
and separated from each other, it is vain and unrea-
sonable to ask how they can become one. Unless we
are able to hold the subjective and the objective apart
in thought, we cannot be in a position to inquire into
the nature of their connection. But we have shown
that it is not possible for us, by any effort of thought,
to hold the subjective and the objective apart ; that
the moment the subjective is thought, it becomes both
the subjective and the objective in one ; and that the
moment the objective is thought, it becomes both the
subjective and the objective in one ; and that, how-
ever often we may repeat the attempt to separate
them, the result is invariably the same ; each of the
terms, mistakenly supposed to be but a member of

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 283

one whole, is again found to be itself that very whole.
Therefore we see that it is impossible for us to get
ourselves into a position from which we might in-
quire into the nature of the connection between mind
and matter, because it is not possible for thought to
construe, intelligibly to itself, the ideal disconnection
which must necessarily be presupposed as preceding
such an inquiry. It must not be supposed, however,
that this inability to separate the subject and object
of perception argues any weakness on the part of
human thought. Here reason merely obeys her own
laws ; and the just conclusion is, that these two are
not really two, but are, in truth, fundamentally and
originally one.

Let us add, too, that when we use the words " con-
nection between," we imply that there are two things
to be connected. But here there are not two things,
but only one. Let us again have recourse to our old
illustration of the neutral salt. Our hypothesis (for
the purpose of explaining the present question) is,
with regard to this substance, that its analysis, re-
peated as often as it may be, invariably gives us,
not an alkali and an acid, but what turns out to be
an acid-alkali (an indivisible unit), when we examine
what we imagined to be the pure acid; and also
what turns out to be an acid-alkali (an indivisible
unit), when we examine what we imagined to be the
pure alkali; so that, supposing we should inquire
into the connection between the acid and the alkali,
the question would either be, What is the connection

284 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

between an acid-alkali on the one hand, and an acid-
alkali on the other ? in other words, What is the con-
nection between two neutral salts ? or it would be
this absurd one, What is the connection between one
thing, the indivisible acid-alkali ? In the same
way, with respect to the question in hand. There is
not a subjective and objective before us, but there
is what we find to be an indivisible subjective-ob-
jective, when we commence by regarding what we
imagined to be the pure subjective ; and there is
what we find to be an indivisible subjective-objec-
tive also, when we commence by regarding what we
imagined to be the pure objective ; so that the ques-
tion respecting the nature of the connection between
the subjective and the objective comes to be either
this, What is the nature of the connection between
two subjective-objectives ? (but that is not the ques-
tion to which an answer was wished), or else this,
What is the nature of the connection between one
thing, one thing which no effort of thought can con-
strue as really two ? Surely no one but an Irishman
would think of asking, or expecting an answer to,
such a question.

Now, with regard to the question in its new shape,
it is obvious that it requires no answer ; and that no
answer given to it would be explanatory of any real
difficulty. For, as in chemistry, no purpose would
be gained; no new truth would be evolved by our
explaining the connection between two neutral salts,
except an observed increase of bulk in one neutral

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 285

salt; so in explaining the connection between two
subject-objects (i.e., between mind-and-matter and
mind-and-matter), no new truth could be elicited,
no difficulty whatever would be solved, the Quan-
tum before us would be merely increased. Some
allowance must be made for the imperfection of the
above illustration, but we think that it may serve to
indicate our meaning. The true state of the case,
however, is that there are not really two subject-
objects before us, but only one viewed under two
different aspects. The subject-object viewed subjec-
tively, is the whole mind of man, not without an
external universe along with it, but with an external
universe necessarily given in the very giving, in the
very conception of that mind. In this case all ex-
ternal nature is our nature, is the necessary integra-
tion of man. The subject-object viewed objectively,
is the whole external universe, not without mind
along with it, but with mind necessarily given in the
very giving, in the very conception of that external
universe. In this case our nature is external nature,
is the necessary integration of the universe. Be-
ginning with the subjective subject-object (mind),
we find that its very central and intelligible essence
is to have an external world as one with it ; begin-
ning with the objective subject-object (the external
world), we find that its very central and intelligible
essence is to have a mind as one with it. He who
can maintain his equilibrium between these two op-
posite views without falling over either into the one

286 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

(which conducts to idealism) or into the other (which
conducts to materialism), possesses the gift of genuine
speculative insight.

One important result of this view of the question
is, that it demolishes for ever that explanation of
perception which is founded on the relation of cause
and effect. Because it has been shown that the
cause, that is, the object, cannot be conceived at all
unless the effect, that is, the perception, be already
conceived in inseparable union with it. Therefore,
when we say that the object is the cause of our
perception, we merely say that that which, when
thought, becomes one with our perception, is the
cause of our perception. In other words, we are
guilty of the glaring petitio principii of maintaining
that our perceptions of objects are the causes of our
perceptions of objects.

Another important result of the new philosophy
is the finishing stroke which it gives to the old sys-
tems of dogmatic Eealism and dogmatic Idealism.
The former of these maintains that an outward world
exists, independent of our perceptions of it. The
latter maintains that no such world exists, and that
we are cognisant merely of our own perceptions. But
this new doctrine shows that these systems are in-
vestigating a problem which cannot possibly be an-
swered either in the affirmative or the negative;
not on account of the limited nature of the human
faculties, but because the question itself is an irra-
tional and unintelligible one. For if we say, with

THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION. 287

dogmatic Realism, that an outward world does exist
independent of our perception of it, this implies that
we are able to separate, in thought, external objects
and our perceptions of them. But such a separation
we have shown to be impossible and inconceivable.
And if, on the other hand, we say, with dogmatic
Idealism, that an outward world does not exist in-
dependent of our perceptions of it, and that we are
conscious only of these perceptions, this involves us
in exactly the same perplexity. Because to think
that there is no outward independent world, is no-
thing more than to think an outward independent
world aivay, but to think an independent world
away, we must first of all think it ; but to think an
outward independent world at all, is to be able to
make the distinction which we have shown it is
impossible for us to make, the distinction, namely,
between objects and our perceptions of them. There-
fore this question touching the reality or non-reality
of an external world cannot be answered, not because
it is unanswerable, but because it is unaskable.

We now take leave of a subject which we not only
have not exhausted, but into the body and soul of
which we do not pretend to have entered. We have
confined our discussion to the settlement of the pre-
liminaries of one great question. We think, how-
ever, that we have indicated the true foundations
upon which modern philosophy must build, that we
have described the vital crisis in which speculative
thought is at present labouring, while old things are

288 THE CRISIS OF MODERN SPECULATION.

passing away, and all things are becoming new.
This form of the truth is frail and perishable, and
will quickly be forgotten ; but the truth itself which
it embodies is permanent as the soul of man, and will
endure for ever. We hope, in conclusion, that some
allowance will be made for this sincere, though per-
haps feeble, endeavour to catch the dawning rays
which are now heralding the sunrise of a new era of
science, the era of genuine speculation.

!

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.'

AMONG all philosophers, ancient or modern, we are
acquainted with none who presents fewer vulnerable
points than Bishop Berkeley. His language, it is
true, has sometimes the appearance of paradox ; but
there is nothing paradoxical in his thoughts, and
time has proved the adamantine solidity of his prin-
ciples. With less sophistry than the simplest, and
with more subtlety than the acutest of his contem-
poraries, the very perfection of his powers prevented
him from being appreciated by the age in which he
lived. The philosophy of that period was just suffi-
ciently tinctured with common sense to pass current
with the vulgar, while the common sense of the
period was just sufficiently coloured by philosophy to
find acceptance among the learned. But Berkeley,

1 • A Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, designed to show
the unsoundness of that celebrated speculation.' By Samuel
Bailey, author of ' Essays on the Formation and Publication of
Opinions,' &c. London : Ridgway. 1842.

292 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

ingenious beyond the ingenuities of philosophy, and
unsophisticated beyond the artlessness of common
sense, saw that there was no sincerity in the terms of
this partial and unstable compromise ; that the popu-
lar opinions, which gave currency and credence to
the theories of the day, were not the unadulterated
convictions of the natural understanding; and that
the theories of the day, which professed to give en-
lightenment to the popular opinions, were not the
genuine offspring of the speculative reason. In en-
deavouring to construct a system in which this spu-
rious coalition should be exposed, and in which our
natural convictions and our speculative conclusions
should be more firmly and enduringly reconciled, he
necessarily offended both parties, even when he ap-
peared to be giving way to the opposite prejudices of
each. He overstepped the predilections both of the
learned and the unlearned. His extreme subtlety was
a stumbling-block in the path of the philosophers ; and
his extreme simplicity was more than the advocates
of common sense were inclined to bargain for.

But the history of philosophy repairs any injustice
which may be done to philosophy itself; and the
doctrines of Berkeley, incomplete as they appear
when viewed as the isolated tenets of an individual,
and short as they no doubt fell, in his hands, of
their proper and ultimate expression, acquire a fuller
and a profounder significance when studied in con-
nection with the speculations which have since fol-
lowed in their train. The great problems of human-

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 293

ity have no room to work themselves out within the
limits of an individual mind. Time alone weaves a
canvas wide enough to do justice to their true pro-
portions; and a few broad strokes is all that the
genius of any one man, however gifted, is permitted
to add to the mighty and illimitable work. It is
therefore no reproach to Berkeley to say that he left
his labours incomplete ; that he was frequently mis-
understood, that his reasonings fell short of their aim,
and that he perhaps failed to carry with him the
unreserved and permanent convictions of any one of
his contemporaries. The subsequent progress of phi-
losophy shows how much the science of man is in-
debted to his researches. He certainly was the first
to stamp the indelible impress of his powerful under-
standing on those principles of our nature, which,
since his time, have brightened into imperishable
truths in the light of genuine speculation. His
genius was the first to swell the current of that
mighty stream of tendency towards which all modern
meditation flows, the great gulf-stream of Absolute
Idealism.

The peculiar endowment by which Berkeley was
distinguished, far beyond his predecessors and con-
temporaries, and far beyond almost every philoso-
pher who has succeeded him, was the eye he had for
facts, and the singular pertinacity with which he re-
fused to be dislodged from his hold upon them. The
fact, the whole fact, and nothing but the fact, was the
clamorous and incessant demand of his intellect, in

294 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

whatever direction it exercised itself. Nothing else,
and nothing less, could satisfy his intellectual crav-
ings. No man ever delighted less to expatiate in the
regions of the occult, the abstract, the impalpable,
the fanciful, and the unknown. His heart and soul
clung with inseparable tenacity to the concrete real-
ities of the universe ; and with an eye uninfluenced
by spurious theories, and unperverted by false know-
ledge, he saw directly into the very life of things.
Hence he was a speculator in the truest sense of the
word ; for speculation is not the art of devising in-
genious hypotheses, or of drawing subtle conclusions,
or of plausibly manoeuvring abstractions. Strictly
and properly speaking, it is the power of seeing true
facts, and of unseeing false ones; a simple enough
accomplishment to all appearance, but nevertheless
one which, considered in its application to the study
of human nature, is probably the rarest, and, at any
rate, has been the least successfully cultivated, of all
the endowments of intelligence.

What a rare and transcendent gift this faculty is,
and how highly Berkeley was endowed with it, will
be made more especially apparent when we come
to speak of his great discoveries on the subject of
vision. In the meantime, we shall take a survey
of those broader and more fully developed doctrines
of Idealism to which his speculations on the eye
were but the tentative herald or preliminary step-
ping-stone.

People who have no turn for philosophic research

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 295

are apt to imagine that discussions on the subject of
matter are carried on for the purpose of proving some-
thing, either pro or con, concerning the existence of
this disputed entity. No wonder, then, that they
should regard the study of philosophy as a most friv-
olous and inane pursuit. But we must be permitted
to remark that these discussions have no such object
in view. Matter and its existence is a question about
which they have no direct concern. They are en-
tirely subservient to the far greater end of making us
acquainted with our own nature. This is their sole
and single aim ; and if such knowledge could be
obtained by any other means, these investigations
would certainly never have encumbered the pages of
legitimate inquiry. But it is not so to be obtained.
The laws of thought can be discovered only by vex-
ing, in all its bearings, the problem respecting the
existence of matter. Therefore, to those interested
in these laws, we need make no further apology for
disturbing the dust which has gathered over the re-
searches on this subject of our country's most pro-
found, but most misrepresented, philosopher.

Berkeley is usually said to have denied the exist-
ence of matter ; and in this allegation there is some-
thing which is true, combined with a great deal more
that is false. But what is matter ? Tlmt is matter,
said Dr Johnson, once upon a time, kicking his foot
against a stone; a rather peremptory explanation,
but, at the same time, one for which Berkeley, to use
the Doctor's own language, would have hugged him.

296 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

The great Idealist certainly never denied the exist-
ence of matter in the sense in which Johnson under-
stood it. As the touched, the seen, the heard, the
smelled, and the tasted, he admitted and maintained
its existence as readily and completely as the most
illiterate and unsophisticated of mankind.

In what sense, then, was it that Berkeley denied
the existence of matter? He denied it not in the
sense in which the multitude understood it, but solely
in the sense in which philosophers1 understood and
explained it. And what was it that philosophers
understood by matter? They understood by it an
occult something which, in itself, is not touched, not
seen, not heard, not smelled, and not tasted ; a phan-
tom-world lying behind the visible and tangible uni-
verse, and which, though constituting in their esti-
mation the sum and substance of all reality, is yet
never itself brought within the sphere or apprehen-
sion of the senses. Thus, under the direction of a
misguided imagination, they fancied that the sensible
qualities which we perceive in things were copies of
other occult qualities of which we have no percep-
tion, and that the whole sensible world was the un-
substantial representation of another and real world,
hidden entirely from observation, and inaccessible to
all our faculties.

Now it was against this metaphysical phantom of

1 Berkeley's Works: 4Of the Principles of Human Knowledge,'
see. 35, 37, 56. First Dialogue, vol. i. pp. 110, 111. Second Dia-
logue, vol. i. p. 159. Third Dialogue, vol. i. p. 199, 222. Ed. 1820.

BEEKELEY AND IDEALISM. 297

the brain, this crotchet-world of philosophers, and
against it alone, that all the attacks of Berkeley were tAtBjQ*
directed. The doctrine that the realities! of things
were not made for man, and that he must rest satis-
fied with their mere appearances, was regarded, and
rightly regarded by him, as the parent of scepticism,1
with all her desolating train. He saw that philoso-
phy, in giving up the reality immediately within her
grasp, in favour of a reality supposed to be less de-
lusive, which lay beyond the limits of experience,
resembled the dog in the fable, who, carrying a piece
of meat across a river, let the substance slip from his
jaws, while, with foolish greed, he snatched at its
shadow in the stream. The dog lost his dinner, and
philosophy let go her secure hold upon the truth.
He therefore sided with the vulgar, who recognise no
distinction between the reality and the appearance
of objects, and, repudiating the baseless hypothesis
of a world existing unknown and unperceived, he
resolutely maintained that what are called the sen-
sible shows of things are in truth the very things
themselves.

The precise point of this polemic between Berkeley
and the philosophers, is so admirably stated in the
writings of David Hume, that we feel we cannot
do justice to the subject without quoting his simple
and perspicuous words ; premising, however, that the
arch-sceptic had his own good reasons for not doing
full justice to his great forerunner. Nothing indeed

1 ' Principles of Human Knowledge,' sec. 86, 87.

298 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

was further from his intention than the wish that
the world should know the side which, in this con-
troversy, Berkeley had so warmly espoused. Had he
furnished this information, he would have frustrated
the whole scope of his own observations.

" Men," says Hume, " are carried by a natural
instinct or prepossession to repose faith in their
senses. When they follow this blind and powerful
instinct of nature, they always suppose the very
images presented to the senses to he the external
objects, and never entertain any suspicion that the
one are nothing but representations of the other.
But this universal and primary opinion of all men is
soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which
teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the
mind but an image or perception. So far, then, we
are necessitated by reasoning to contradict or depart
from the primary instincts of nature, and to embrace
a new system with regard to the evidence of our
senses. But here philosophy finds herself extremely
embarrassed, when she would justify this new sys-
tem, and obviate the cavils and objections of the
sceptics. She can no longer plead the infallible and
irresistible instinct of nature, for that led us to a
quite different system, which is acknowledged fallible
and even erroneous. And to justify this pretended
philosophical system by a chain of clear and convinc-
ing argument, or even any appearance of argument,
exceeds the power * of all human capacity." Then
follows the famous sceptical dilemma which was

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 299

never, before or since, so clearly and forcibly put.
" Do you," he continues (firstly), " follow the instinct
and propensities of nature in assenting to the veracity
of sense ? But these lead you to believe that the
very 'perception or sensible image is the external ob-
ject." (Then, secondly), " Do you disclaim this prin-
ciple in order to embrace a more rational opinion,
that the perceptions are only representations of some-
thing external ? You here depart from your natural
propensities and more obvious sentiments; and yet
are not able to satisfy your reason, which can never
find any convincing argument from experience to
prove that the perceptions are connected with any
external objects." l

Now, when a man constructs a dilemma, it is well
that he should see that both of its horns are in a
condition to gore to the quick any luckless opponent
who may throw himself upon either of their points.
But Hume had only tried the firmness and sharpness
of the second horn of this dilemma ; and certainly
its power of punishing had been amply proved by
the mercilessness with which it had lacerated, during
every epoch, the body of speculative science. But he
had left untried the temper of the other horn. In the
triumph of his overweening scepticism, he forgot to
examine this alternative antler, no doubt considering
its aspect too menacing to be encountered even by

1 Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iv. pp. 177, 178, 179. Ed.
1826. We have abridged the passage, but have altered none of
Hume's expressions.

300 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

the most foolhardy assailant. But the horn was
far less formidable than it looked. Berkeley had
already thrown himself upon it, and though he did
not find it to be exactly a cushion of down, he was
not one whit damaged in the encounter. " I follow,"
says he, embracing the first of the alternatives, "/
follow the instincts and prepossessions of nature. I
assent to the veracity of sense, and I believe that
the very perception or sensible image is the external
object, and on no account whatever will I consent
1 to disclaim this principle.' Your philosophy, your
more rational opinions, your system of representation,
your reasonings which, you say, necessitate me to
depart from my primary instincts, all these I give,
without reservation, to the winds. And now, what
do you make of me ? " ' And if he had answered

1 Vide Berkeley's Works, vol. i. pp. 182, 200, 203.— If the ana-
chronism were no objection, a very happy and appropriate motto
for Berkeley's works would be —

" Spernit Humum fugiente penna."

—Horace, Od. iii. 2, 24.

David Hume, however, was a very great man — great as a his-
torian, as every one admits ; but greater still as a philosopher ;
for it is impossible to calculate what a blank, but for him, the
whole speculative science of Europe for the last seventy years
would have been. If the reader wishes to see the character of
his writings, and the scope of the sceptical philosophy fairly ap-
preciated, we beg to refer him to an article in the ' Edinburgh
Review' (Vol. LII. p. lSSctscq., Art. "Philosophy of Perception"),
written by Sir William Hamilton, and which, in our opinion,
contains more condensed thought and more condensed learning
than are to be found in any similar number of pages in our lan-
guage, on any subject whatever. It gives us great pleasure to
see that the writings of this distinguished philosopher, extracted

thus, as he would undoubtedly have done had he
been alive, for such a reply is in harmony with the
whole spirit of his philosophy, we do not, indeed, see
what Hume, with all his subtle dialect, could have
made of him. But the champion of common sense,
he alone who could have foiled the prince of sceptics
at his own weapons, was dead,1 and the cause had
fallen into the hands of Dr Eeid, a far easier cus-
tomer, who, when he could not avoid both horns of
the dilemma, preferred to encounter the second, as
apparently the less mischievous of the two.

»The first great point, then, on which Berkeley
differed from the ordinary philosophical doctrine, and
sided with the vulgar, is that he contended, with
the whole force of his intellect, for the inviolable
identity of objects and the appearances of objects.
The external world in itself, and the external world
in relation to us, was a philosophic distinction which
he refused to recognise. In his creed, the substantive
and the phenomenal were one. And, though he has

from the 'Edinburgh Review,' have been translated into French
(Paris, 1840) by M. Peisse, a very competent translator, who has
prefixed to the work an introduction of his own, not unworthy of
the profound disquisitions that follow.

1 Was dead. This is not precisely true, for Hume's ' Treatise of
Human Nature,' from which the above extract is taken, was pub-
lished in 1739, and Berkeley did not die until 1753. But we ex-
plain it by saying that Hume's work fell dead-born from the press,
and did not attract any degree of attention until long after its
publication ; and when at length, after a lapse of many years, the
proper time for answering it arrived, on account of the general
notoriety which it had suddenly obtained, that then Berkeley was

302 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

been accused of sacrificing the substance to the
shadow, and though he still continues to be charged,
by every philosophical writer, with reducing all
things to ideas in the mind, he was guilty of no such
absurdity, at least when interpreted by the spirit, if
not by the letter of his speculations. Nay, the very
letter of his philosophy, in general, forestalls, and
bears him up against, all the cavils of his opponents.
His own words, in answer to these allegations, are
the following. " No," says he, addressing his antag-
onist Hylas, who is advocating the common opinion
of philosophers, and pressing against him the objec-
tions we have spoken of, " No, I am not for changing
things into ideas, but rather ideas into things ; since
those immediate objects of perception, which, accord-
ing to you, are only appearances of things, / take to
be the real things themselves."

" Things ! " rejoins Hylas ; " you may pretend what
you please ; but it is certain you leave us nothing
but the empty forms of things, the outside of which
only strikes the senses."

" What you," answers Berkeley, " what you call
the empty forms and outside of things, seem to me
the very things themselves. . . . We both, there-
fore, agree in this, that we perceive only sensible
forms ; but herein we differ, you will have them to
be empty appearances, I, real beings. In short, you do
not trust your senses, I>do." 1

So far, then, there does not appear to be much

1 Berkeley's Works, vol. i. p. 201. Ed. 1820.

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 303

justice in the ordinary allegation, that Berkeley dis-
credited the testimony of the senses, and denied the
existence of the material universe. He merely de-
nied the distinction between things and their appear-
ances, and maintained that the thing was the appear-
ance, and that the appearance was the thing. But
this averment brings us into the very thick of the
difficulties of the question. For does it not imply
that the external world exists only in so far as it is
perceived, that its esse, as Berkeley says, is percipi ;
that its existence is its being perceived, and that, if
it were not perceived, it would not exist ? At first
sight the averment certainly does imply something-
very like all this; therefore, we must now be ex-
tremely cautious how we proceed.

We have already remarked that Berkeley, in vin-
dicating the cause of common sense, frequently ap-
peared to overshoot the mark, and to give vent to
opinions which somewhat staggered even the sim-
plest of the vulgar, and seemed less reconcilable with
the obvious sentiments of nature than the philoso-
phical doctrines themselves which they were brought
forward to supplant. And the opinion now stated
is the most startling of these tenets, and one which,
to all appearance, is calculated rather to endamage
than to help the cause which it is intended to sup-
port. But, in advancing it, Berkeley knew perfectly
well what he was about ; and though he is far from
having fenced it with all the requisite explanations,
and though he did not succeed in putting it in a

304 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

very clear light, or in giving it an adequate and
ultimate form of expression, or in obviating all the
cavils and strong objections to which it was exposed,
or in sounding the depths of its almost unfathomable
significance ; still he felt, with the instinct of a pro-
phet, that it was a stronghold of impregnable truth,
and that in resting on it he was treading on a firm
footing of fact which could never be swept away.
Time, and the labours of his successors, have done
for him what the span of one man's life — and span
too, we may say, of one man's intellect, capacious
as his undoubtedly was — prevented him doing for
himself.

We shall admit, then, that Berkeley holds that
matter has no existence independently of mind,
that mind, if entirely removed, would involve in its
downfall the absolute annihilation of matter. And
admitting this, we think, at the same time, that we
can afford a perfectly satisfactory explanation of so
strange and difficult a paradox, and resolve a knot
which Berkeley was the first to loosen, but which he
certainly did not explicitly untie. The question
is, Supposing ourselves away or annihilated, would
the external world continue to exist as heretofore,
or would it vanish into nonentity ? But the terms
of this question involve a preliminary question,
which must first of all be disposed of. Mark what
these terms are ; they are comprised in the words,
" supposing ourselves away or annihilated." But can
we suppose ourselves away or annihilated ? If we

BERKELEY AXD IDEALISM. 305

I can, then we promise to proceed at once to give a
categorical answer to the question just put. But if
we cannot, then the prune condition of the question
not being purified, the question itself has not been
intelligibly asked ; and therefore it cannot expect to
receive a rational or intelligible answer. Should
this be found to be the case, it will be obvious that
we have been imposing upon ourselves, and have
only mistakenly imagined ourselves to be asking a
question which in truth we are not asking.

Can we, then, conceive ourselves removed or an-
nihilated ? is this thought a possible or conceiv-
able supposition ? Let us try it by the test of
experience, by hypothetically answering the original
question, in the first place, in the affirmative, and by
saying that, although we conceive ourselves and all
percipient beings annihilated, still the great universe
of matter would maintain its place as firmly and as
faithfully as before. We believe, then, that were
there no eye actually present to behold them, the
sky would be as bright, and the grass as green, as
if they were gazed upon by ten million witnesses ;
that, though there were no ear present to hear them,
the thunder would roar as loudly, and the sea sound
as tempestuously as before ; and, that the firm-set
earth, though now deserted by man, would remain as
solid as when she resisted the pressure of all the
generations of her children. But do we not see
that, in holding this belief, we have violated, at the
very outset, the essential conditions of our question ?

u

306 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

We bound ourselves to annihilate the percipient
in thought, to keep him ideally excluded from the
scene, and having done this, we professed ourselves
ready to believe and maintain that the universe
would preserve its place and discharge its functions
precisely the same as heretofore. But in thinking
of the bright sky, and of the green grass, and of the
loud thunder, and of the solid earth, we have not
kept him excluded from the scene, but have brought
back in thought the very percipient being whom
we supposed, but most erroneously supposed, we had
abstracted from his place in the creation. For what
is this brightness and this greenness but an ideal
vision, which cannot be thought of unless man's
eyesight be incarnated with it in one inseparable
conception ? Nature herself, we may say, has so
beaten up together sight and colour, that man's faculty
of abstraction is utterly powerless to dissolve the
charmed union. The two (supposed) elements are
not two, but only one, for they cannot be separated
in thought even by the craft of the subtlest analysis.
It is God's synthesis, and man cannot analyse it.
And further, what is the loud thunder, and what
is the sounding sea, without the ideal restoration
of the hearing being whom we professed to have
thought of as annihilated ? And finally, what is the
solidity of the rocks and mountains but that which
is conceived to respond to the touch and tread of
some human percipient, ideally restored to traverse
their unyielding and everlasting heights ?

BEEKELEY AND IDEALISM. 307

Perhaps the reader may here imagine that we are
imposing a quibble both on ourselves and him, and
that though we may not be able to conceive our-
selves ideally removed, yet that we are perfectly able
to conceive ourselves actually removed out of the
universe, leaving its existence unaltered and entire ;
but a small degree of reflection may satisfy him that
this distinction will not help him in the least. For,
what is this universe which the reader, after con-
ceiving himself, as he thinks, actually away from it,
has left behind him unmutilated and entire ? We
ask him to tell us something about it. But when
he attempts to do so, he will invariably find the
constitution of his nature to be such that, instead of
being able to tell us anything about it, he is com-
pelled to revert to a description of his own human
perceptions of it, perceptions which, however, ought
to be left altogether out of the account; for what
he is bound to describe to us is the universe itself,
abstracted from all those impressions of it which
were supposed to be non-existent. But this is what
it is impossible for him to describe. A man declares
that if he were annihilated the universe would still
exist. But what universe would still exist ? The
bright, the green, the solid, the sapid, the odoriferous,
the extended, and the figured universe would still
exist. Certainly it would. But this catalogue com-
prises the series of your perceptions of the universe,
and this is not what we want ; this is precisely what
you undertook not to give us. In mixing up the

308 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

thought of these perceptions with the universe, pro-
fessedly thought to exist independently of them,
you have transgressed the stipulated terms of the
question, the conclusion from which is that, in sup-
posing yourself annihilated, you did not suppose
yourself annihilated, you took yourself back into
being in the very same breath in which you puffed
yourself away into nonentity.

We must here beg to guard ourselves most par-
ticularly against the imputation of having said that,
in thinking of the external universe, man thinks
only of his own perceptions of it ; or that, when he
has it actually present before him, he is conscious
only of the impressions which it makes upon him.
This is a doctrine very commonly espoused by the
idealistic writers. It is a tempting trap into which
they have all been too prone to fall; and Berkeley
himself, and a man as great as he, Fichte, have not
altogether escaped the snare. But it cuts up the
very roots of genuine speculative idealism, and con-
troverts the first and strongest principle on which it
rests. This principle, we may remind the reader,
is that the thing is the appearance, and that the
appearance is the thing ; that the object is our per-
ception of it, and that our perception of it if the
object; in short, that these two are convertible
ideas, or, more properly speaking, are one and the
same idea. But this use of the word only implies
that we possess a faculty of abstraction, in virtue of
which we are able to distinguish between objects

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 309

the appearances of things, a doctrine which, if
admitted (and admit it we must, if we use the
word only in the application alluded to above),
would leave this as the distinction between realism
and idealism, that whereas the former separates ob-
jects from our perceptions of them for the purpose
of preserving the objects, the latter separates the two
for the purpose of annihilating the objects. And
the truth is, that this is precisely the distinction
between spurious realism and spurious idealism.
They both found upon the assumed capability of
making this abstraction, only they differ, as we have
said, herein, that the one makes it in order to pre-
serve the objects, and the other in order to destroy
them. But genuine idealism, looking only to the
fact, and instructed by the unadulterated dictates of
common sense, denies altogether the capability of
making the abstraction, denies that we can separate
in thought objects and perceptions at all ; and hence
this system has nothing whatever to do either With
the preservation or with the destruction of the
material universe ; and hence, too, it is identical, in
its length, and in its breadth, and in its whole sig-
nificance, with genuine unperverted realism, which
just as stoutly refuses to acknowledge the operation
of this pretended faculty. Let us beware, then, of
maintaining that man, in his intercourse with the
external universe, has only his own perceptions or
impressions to deal with. It was this unwary aver-

310 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

ment which gave rise to the systems, on the one
hand, of subjective idealism, with all its hampering
absurdities ; and, on the other hand, of hypothetical
realism, with all its unwarrantable and unsatisfying
conclusions.

To return to our question. It seems certain, then,
that the question, Would matter exist if man were
annihilated ? cannot be intelligibly asked, when we
consider it as answered in the affirmative, because
it is clear that its terms cannot be complied with.
Conceiving the universe to remain entire, we cannot
conceive ourselves as abstracted or removed from
its sphere. We think ourselves back, in the very
moment in which we think ourselves away.

But, in the second place, suppose that we attempt
to answer the question in the negative, and to main-
tain that the material universe would no longer exist
if we and all percipient beings were annihilated ; how
will this hypothetical conclusion help us out of the
difficulty which hampers the very enunciation of the
problem ? We are aware that this is the favourite
conclusion of idealism as commonly understood, and
it is a conclusion not altogether uncountenanced by
the reasonings of Berkeley himself. But still the
form of idealism which espouses any such conclu-
sion is unguarded and shortsighted in the extreme.
The ampler and more wary system refuses to have
anything to do with it ; for this system sees that,
when the question is attempted to be answered in
the negative, the conditions of its statement are not

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 311

one whit more faithfully discharged than they were
when a reply was supposed to be given to it in the
affirmative. For let us try the point. Let us say
that, man being annihilated, there would no longer
be any external universe ; that is to say, that there
would be universal colourlessness, universal silence,
universal impalpability, universal tastelessness, and so
forth. But universal colourlessness, universal silence,
universal impalpability, universal tastelessness, and
so forth, are just as much phenomena requiring, in
thought, the presence of an ideal percipient endowed
with sight and hearing and taste and touch, as their
more positive opposites were phenomena requiring
such a percipient. Non-existence itself is a pheno-
menon requiring a percipient present to apprehend
it, just as much as existence is. No external world
is no more no external world without an ideal per-
cipient, than an external world is an external world
without an ideal percipient. Therefore, in saying
that there would be no external world if man were
annihilated, we involve ourselves in precisely the
same incapacity of rationally enunciating the ques-
tion as we did in the former case. We are compelled
to bring back in thought our very percipient selves,
whom we declared we had conceived of as annihi-
lated. In neither case can we adhere to the terms
of the question ; in neither case can we construe it
intelligibly to our own minds; and therefore the
question is unanswerable, not because it cannot be
answered, but because it cannot be asked.

312 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

Now for the great truth to which these observa-
tions are the precursor. We have already taken
occasion to remark that discussions of the kind we
are engaged in, are carried on, not for the sake of any
conclusion we may arrive at with respect to the exist-
ence or the non-existence of the material universe,
but solely for the sake of the laws of human thought
which may be evolved in the course of the research.
Now, the conclusion to which we are led by the train
of our present speculation is this, that no question
and no proposition whatever can for a moment be
entertained which involves the supposition of our
annihilation. It is an irreversible law of human
thought, that no such idea can be construed to the
mind by any effort of the understanding, or rationally
articulated by any power of language. We cannot,
and we do not think it ; we only think that we think
it. And upon the basis of this law, and upon it
alone, independently of revelation, rests the great
doctrine of our immortality. The fear of death is a
salutary fear, and the thought of death is a salutary
thought, not because we can really think the thought
or really entertain the fear, but only because we
imagine that we can do so. This imagination of
ours (we say it with the deepest reverence) is a
gracious imposition practised upon us by the Author
of our nature, for the wisest and most benevolent of
purposes. We appear to ourselves to be able to
realise the thought and the fear, and this it is which
drives us back so irresistibly into the busy press of

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 313

life, and weds us so passionately to its rosy forms;
we are not able to realise the thought or the fear,
and this it is which makes us secretly to rejoice " in
the sublime attractions of the grave." Woe to us, if
we could indeed think of death ! In the real thought
of it we should be already dead, but in the mere
illusive imagination of the thought we are already
an immortal race. We have nothing to wait for ;
eternity is even now within us, and time, with all its
vexing troubles, rs no more.1

But to return to Berkeley. What then is the
precise position in which he has left the question
respecting man and the material universe ? He
maintains, as we have said, that matter depends
entirely for its existence upon mind. And in this
opinion we cordially agree with him. But we must
be allowed to widen very amply the basis of his
principle, otherwise, on account of the doctrine thus
professed, we feel well assured that our friends would
be disposed to call our sanity in question. Berke-
ley's doctrine amounts to this, that there are trees,
for instance, and houses in the world, because they
are either seen, and so forth, or thought of as seen,
and so forth. But here his groundwork is far too
narrow, for it seems to imply this, that there would
be no trees and no houses unless they were seen, or
thought of as seen. It is therefore exposed to strong

1 Wordsworth's little poem, entitled '"We are Seven, ' illustrates
this great law of human thought — the natural inconceivability of
death ; and hence, simple as its character may be, it is rooted in
the most profound and recondite psychological truth.

314 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

objections and misconstructions. The realist may
laugh it to scorn by saying, " Then, I suppose, there
are no trees and no houses when there is no man's
mind either seeing or thinking of them ! " But
broaden the basis of the idealistic principle, and see
how innocuous this objection falls to the ground ;
affirm that in the case of every phenomenon, that is,
even in the case of the phenomenon of the absence of
all phenomena, a subject-mind must be thought of as
incarnated with the phenomenon, and the cavil is at
once obviated and disarmed. The realist expects
the idealist, in virtue of his principle, taken in its
narrower significance, to admit that when the per-
cipient neither sees, nor thinks of seeing, trees and
houses, there would be no such thing as these objects.
But the idealist, instructed by his principle in its
wider significance, replies, " ~No, my good sir ; no-trees
and no-houses (i.e., space empty of trees and houses) is
a phenomenon, just as much as trees and houses them-
selves are phenomena; and as such it can no more
exist without being seen or thought of as seen than
any other phenomenon can. Therefore, if I were to
admit that, in the total absence and oblivion of the
percipient there would be no-trees and no-houses in
a particular place, I should be guilty of the very
error I am most anxious to avoid, and which it is
the aim of my whole system to guard people against
committing; I should merely be substituting other
phenomena in lieu of those which had disappeared ;
I should merely be placing the phenomenon of

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 315

no-object in the room of the phenomenon of object,
and, in maintaining (as you seem to expect I should)
that the former might exist without being seen or
thought of as seen, while the latter might not so
exist, I should be giving a direct contradiction to
my whole speculation : I should be chargeable with
holding that some phenomena are independent and
irrespective of a percipient mind either really or
ideally present to them, and that others are not;
whereas my great doctrine is, that no phenomena,
not even, as I have said, the phenomenon of the
absence of all phenomena, are thus independent or
irrespective." It appears to us that Berkeley's prin-
ciple requires to be enlarged in some such terms as
these ; and being so, we think that it is then proof
against all cavils and objections whatsoever. It is
perfectly true that the existence of matter depends
entirely on the presence, that is, either the real or
the ideal presence, of a conscious mind. But it does
not follow from this that there would be no-matter
if no such conscious mind were present or thought
of as present, because no-matter depends just as
much upon the real or the ideal presence of a con-
scious mind. Thus are spiked all the cannon of false
realism; thus all her trenches are obliterated, all
her supplies cut off, and all her resources rendered
unserviceable. This, too, we may add, is the flank
of false idealism turned, and her forces driven from
their ground, while absolute real idealism, or the
complete conciliation of common sense and philo-

316 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

sophy, remains in triumphant possession of the
field.

Now we think that this mode of meeting the
question respecting mind and matter, and of clearing
its difficulties, is infinitely preferable to that resorted
to by some philosophers, in which they make a dis-
tinction between what they call the primary and
what they call the secondary qualities of matter ;
holding that the latter are purely subjective affec-
tions, or impressions existing only in ourselves ; and
that the former are purely objective elements, con-
stituting the very existence of things. As this is
a very prevalent and powerfully supported opinion,
we cannot pass it by without some notice. But in
our exposure of its futility we shall be very brief.
All the secondary qualities, colours, sounds, tastes,
smells, heat, hardness, everything, in short, which
is an affection of sense, may be generalised at one
sweep into our mere knowledge of things. But the
primary qualities, which are usually restricted to
extension and figure, and which constitute, it is said,
the objective or real essence of things, and which are
entirely independent of us, into what shall they be
generalised ? Into what but into this ? into the
knowledge of something, which exists in things over
and above our mere knowledge of things. It is
plain enough that we cannot generalise them into
pure objective existence in itself ; we can only
generalise them into a knowledge of pure objective
existence. But such a knowledge, that is to say,

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 317

a knowledge of something existing in things, over
and above our mere knowledge of them, is not one
whit less our knowledge, and is not one whit more
their existence, than the other more subjective
knowledge designated by the word mere. Our
knowledge of extension and figure is just as little
these real qualities themselves, as our affection of
colour is objective colour itself. Just as little we
say, and just as much. You (we suppose ourselves
addressing an imaginary antagonist), you hold that
our knowledge of the secondary qualities is not
these qualities themselves ; but we ask you, Is,
then, our knowledge of the primary qualities these
qualities themselves ? This you will scarcely main-
tain; but perhaps you will say, Take away the
affection of colour, and the colour no longer exists ;
and we retort upon you, Take away the knowledge
of extension, and the extension no longer exists.
This you will peremptorily deny, and we deny it
just as peremptorily ; but why do both of us deny
it ? Just because both of us have subreptitiously re-
stored the knowledge of extension in denying that
extension itself wTould be annihilated. The know-
ledge of extension is extension, and extension is the
knowledge of extension. Perhaps, in continuation,
you will say, we have our own ideas, the secondary
qualities are in truth our own ideas ; but that be-
sides these we have an idea of something existing
externally to us which is not an idea, and that this
something forms the aggregate of the primary quali-

318 BEEKELEY AND IDEALISM.

ties. Admitted. But is this idea of something
which is not an idea, in any degree less an idea than
the other ideas spoken of ? We should like to be
informed in what respect it is so. Depend upon it,
the primary qualities must be held to stand on pre-
cisely the same footing as the secondary, in so far
as they give us any information respecting real
objective existences. In accepting the one class the
mind may be passive, and in accepting the other
class she may be active ; but that distinction will not
bring us one hair's-breadth nearer to our mark. If
the one class is subjective, so is the other; if the
one class is objective, so is the other ; and the con-
ciliating truth is, that both classes are at once sub-
jective and objective. In fine, we thus break the
neck of the distinction. There is a world as it exists
in relation to us : true. And there is the same
world as it exists in itself, and in non-relation to
us : true also. But the world as it exists in relation
to us, is just one relation in which the world exists
in relation to us ; and the world as it exists in itself,
and in non-relation to us, is just another relation in
which the world exists in relation to us.

Some readers may perhaps imagine that in making
this strong statement we are denying the real objec-
tive existence, the primary qualities, the noumena, as
they are sometimes called, of things. But we are
doing no such thing. Such a denial would lead us
at once into the clueless labyrinths of subjective
idealism, which is a system we altogether repudiate.

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 319

All that we deny is the distinction between the pri-
mary and the secondary qualities, between the nou-
mena and the phenomena; and we deny this dis-
tinction, because we deny the existence of the faculty
(the faculty of abstraction) by means of which we
are supposed to be capable of making it. This cer-
tainly is no denial, but rather an affirmation, of the
primary qualities of real objective existence, and it
places us upon the secure and impregnable ground of
real objective idealism, a system in which knowledge
and existence are identical and convertible ideas.

We shall now proceed to make a few remarks
on the work which stands at the head of the present
article, Mr Bailey's ' Eeview of Berkeley's Theory of
Vision,' in which he endeavours "to show the un-
soundness of that celebrated speculation."

Mr Bailey is favourably known to the literary
portion of the community as the author of some
ingenious ' Essays on the Formation and Publication
of Opinions,' and he is doubtless a very clever man.
But in the work before us, we must say that he has
undertaken a task far beyond his powers, and that
he has most signally failed, not because- these powers
are in themselves feeble, but because they have been
misdirected against a monument — cere perennius — of
solid and everlasting truth. The ability displayed
in the execution of his work is immeasurably greater
than the success with which it has been crowned.

Therefore, when we say that, in our opinion, Mr

320 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

Bailey's work has been anything but successful in
its main object, we can at the same time conscien-
tiously recommend a careful perusal of it to those
who are interested in the studies of which it treats.
Its chief merit appears to us to consist in this, that
it indicates with sufficient clearness the difference
between the entire views advocated by Berkeley
himself on the subject of vision, and the partial
views which it has suited the purposes or the ability
of his more timid but less cautious followers to adopt.
We shall immediately have occasion to speak of the
respects in which the disciples have deserted the
principles of the master ; but let us first of all state
the precise question at issue. There is not much
fault to be found with the terms in which Mr Bailey
has stated it, and therefore we cannot do better than
make use of his words.

"Outness," says he, p. 13, "distance, real magni-
tude, and real figure, are not perceived (according to
Berkeley's theory) immediately by sight, but, in the
first place, by the sense of feeling or touch ; and it
is from experience alone that our visual sensations
come to suggest to us these exclusively tangible
properties. We, in fact, see originally nothing but
various coloured appearances, which are felt as in-
ternal sensations ; and we learn that they are exter-
nal, and also what distances, real magnitudes, and
real figures these coloured appearances indicate, just
as we learn to interpret the meaning of the written
characters of a language. Thus a being gifted with

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 321

sight, but destitute of the sense of touch, would have
no perception of outness, distance, real magnitude,
and real figure. Such is Berkeley's doctrine stated
in the most general terms."

We beg the reader particularly to notice that the
distance and outness here spoken of are the distance
and outness of an object from the eye of the beholder ;
for Mr Bailey imagines, as we shall have occasion to
show, that Berkeley holds that another species of
outness, namely, the outness of one visible thing
from other visible things, is not immediately per-
ceived by sight. This latter opinion, however, is
certainly not maintained by Berkeley, and the idea
that it is so is, we think, the origin of the greater
part of Mr Bailey's mistakes. The only other remark
which we think it necessary to make on this exposi-
tion is, that we slightly object to the words which we
have marked in italics, " in the first place" for they
seem to imply that outness, &c, are perceived by
sight in the second or in the last place. But Berkeley
holds — and in this opinion we agree with him — that
they are never perceived at all by the sense of sight,
properly so called. The same objection applies to
the word " originally" where it is said that we " see
originally nothing but various coloured appearances,"
for it seems to imply that ultimately we come to see
more than various coloured appearances. But this,
following Berkeley's footsteps, we deny that we ever
do. In other respects we think that the statement
is perfectly correct and unobjectionable.

x

322 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

As a further statement and abstract of the theory,
Mr Bailey proceeds to quote Berkeley's own words,
in which he says " that distance or outness " (i.e., out-
ness from the eye) " is neither immediately of itself
perceived by sight, nor yet apprehended and judged
of by lines and angles, or anything that hath a
necessary connection with it ; but that it is only sug-
gested to our thoughts by certain visible ideas and
sensations attending vision, which, in their own na-
ture," have no manner of similitude or relation either
with distance or things placed at a distance. But,
by a connection taught us by experience, they (viz.,
visible ideas and visual sensations) come to signify
and suggest them (viz., distance, and tilings placed at
a distance) to us after the same manner that words
of any language suggest the ideas they are made to
stand for. Insomuch that a man born blind, and
afterwards made to see, would not at first sight
think the things he saw to be without his mind, or
at any distance from him." Such is an outline of
the theory which Mr Bailey undertakes to controvert.

In laying the groundwork of his objections, he first
of all proceeds — and we think this the most valuable
observation in his book — to point out the distinction
between two separate opinions which may be enter-
tained with regard to the outness of visible objects.
The one opinion is, that sight is unable to determine
that visible objects are external, or at any distance
at all from the eye : the other opinion is, that sight,
though gifted with the capacity of determining that

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 323

all visible objects are at some distance from the eye,
is yet unable to determine the relative distances at
which they stand towards it and towards one another.
In the words of Mr Bailey, "Whether objects are
seen to be external, or at some distance, is one ques-
tion altogether distinct from the inquiry — whether
objects are seen by the unassisted vision to be at
different distances from the percipient." He then
adds, " Yet Berkeley uniformly assumes them to be
the same, or at least takes it for granted that they
are to be determined by the same arguments." This
is true enough in one sense, but Mr Bailey should
have considered that if Berkeley did not make the
discrimination, it was because he conceived that the
opinion which maintained the absolute non-exter-
nality of visible objects (i.e., of objects in relation to
the organ of sight) was the only question properly
at issue. The remark, however, is valuable, because
Berkeley's followers, Beid, Stewart, and others, have
supposed that the other question was the one to be
grappled with ; and, accordingly, they have not ven-
tured beyond maintaining that the eye is unable to
judge of the different degrees of distance at which
objects may be placed from it. But the thorough-
going opinion is the true one, and the followers have
deserted their leader only to err, or to discover truths
of no scientific value or significance whatever.

Let us now consider the general object which Berke-
ley had in view, and determine the proper point of
sight from which his " theory of vision " should be

324 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

regarded. We have already remarked that it was
but the stepping-stone or prelude to those maturer
and more extended doctrines of idealism in which
his genius afterwards expatiated, and which have
made his name famous throughout every corner of
the philosophic world ; and which we have endeav-
oured to do justice to in the preceding pages, giving
a more enlarged and unobjectionable construction to
their principle, and clearing, we think, at least some
of the difficulties which beset his statement of it.
His theory of vision may be called an essay on the
idealism of the eye, and of the eye alone. It is
idealism restricted to the consideration of this sense,
and is the first attempt that ever was made to em-
body a systematic and purely speculative critique of
the facts of seeing. We use the words purely specu-
lative in contradistinction from geometrical and phy-
siological critiques of the same sense ; of which there
were abundance in all languages, but which, proceed-
ing on mathematical or anatomical data, which are
entirely tactual, had, in Berkeley's opinion, nothing-
whatever to do with the science of optics, properly
so called. Optics, as hitherto treated, that is to say,
as established on mathematical principles, appeared
to him to be a false science of vision ; for this rea-
son, that the blind were found to be just as capable
of understanding and appreciating it, as those were
who could see. Hence he concluded, and most
justly, that the true facts of sight had been left out
of the estimate, because these were, and necessarily

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 325

must be, facts which no blind person could form any
conception of. He accordingly determined to con-
struct, or at least to pave the way towards the con-
struction of, a truer theory of vision, in which these
— the proper and peculiar facts of the sense — should
be taken exclusively into account : and hence, pass-
ing from the mathematical and physiological method,
he took up a different, and what we have called a
purely speculative ground — a ground which cannot
be rendered intelligible or conceivable to the blind,
inasmuch as they are deficient in the sense which
alone furnishes the data that are to be dealt with.
The test by which Berkeley tried optical science was,
Can the blind be brought to understand, or to form
any conception of it ? If they can, then the science
must be false, for it ought to be a science of experi-
ences from which they are entirely debarred. We
should bear in mind, then, first of all, that his object
in constructing his theory of vision was, leaving all
geometrical and anatomical considerations out of the
question, to apprehend the proper and peculiar facts
of sight — the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but
the facts, of that particular and isolated sense.

Now we think that Mr Bailey's leading error con-
sists in his not having remarked the unswerving cle-
votedness with which Berkeley follows out this aim ;
and hence, having failed to appreciate the singleness
and unrelaxing perseverance of his purpose, he has
consequently failed to appreciate the great success
which has attended his endeavours. He has not

326 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

duly attended or done justice to the pertinacity with
which Berkeley adheres to the facts of vision cut off
from all the other knowledge of which our other
senses are the inlets. In studying the science of
vision, the eye of his mind has not been " single " ;
and hence his mind has not been "full of light."
He does not himself appear to have experimentally
verified the pure facts of the virgin eye as yet un-
wedded to the touch. He has not formed to himself
a clear conception of the absolute distinction between
these two senses and their respective objects — a dis-
tinction upon the clear apprehension of which the
whole intelligibility of Berkeley's assertions and rea-
sonings depends.

In proof of what we aver, let us turn to the con-
sideration of one fact which Berkeley has largely
insisted on as the fundamental fact of the science.
Colour, says the Bishop, is the proper and only object
of vision, and the outness of this object {i.e., its out-
ness from the eye) is not perceived by sight. Upon
which Mr Bailey, disputing the truth of the latter
fact, remarks, — " On turning to Berkeley's essay, we
find literally no arguments which specifically apply to
this question; nothing but bare assertion repeated
in various phrases." This is undoubtedly too true —
and perhaps Berkeley is to be condemned for having
left his assertion so destitute of the support of rea-
soning. But he saw that he had stated a fact which
he himself had verified, and perhaps he did not think
it necessary to prove it to those who had eyes to see it

BEKKELEY AND IDEALISM. 327

for themselves ; perhaps he was unable to prove it.
But, at any rate, Mr Bailey's complaint shows that he
is deficient in that speculative sense which enables a
man to see that to be a fact which is a fact, and to ex-
plicate its reason, even when no rationale of it has
been given by him who originally promulgated it.
This reason we shall now endeavour to supply. Let
us ask, then, What do we mean when we say that a
colour is seen to be external? We mean that it isT
seen to be external to some oilier colour which is before^
us. Thus we say that white is external to black, be-
cause we see it to be so. It is only when we can
make a comparison between two or more colours that
we can say that they are seen to be external — i.e.,
external to each other. But if there were no colour
but one before us, not being able to make any compari-
son, we should be unable by sight to form any judg-
ment at all about its outness, or to say that we saw it
to be out of anything. For what would it be seen to be
out of ? Out of the eye or the mind, you say. But
you do not see the colour of the eye or of the mind —
and therefore you have no ground whatever afforded
you on which, instructed by the sense of sight, you
can form your judgment. You have no other colour
with which to compare it, and therefore, as a com-
parison with other colours is necessary before you
can say that any one of them is seen to be external,
you cannot predicate visible outness of it at all. Nor
does it make any difference how numerous soever
the colours before you may be. You can predicate

328 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

outness of them all in relation to each other; but
you can predicate nothing of the sort with regard to
any of them in relation to your eye or to your mind,
for you have no colour of your eye or mind before you
with which you can compare them, and out of which,
in virtue of that comparison, you can say that they
visibly exist. Doubtless, if you saw the colour of
your own eye, you could then say that other visible
objects, that is, other colours, were seen to be exter-
nal to it. But, as you never see this, you have no-
thing left for it but even now to accept the fact as
Berkeley laid it down, coupled with the reasoning
by which we have endeavoured to explain and ex-
piscate it. But the touch ! Does not the touch
enable us to form a judgment with respect to the
outness of objects from the eye ? Undoubtedly it
does — as 'Berkeley everywhere contends. But the
only question at present at issue is, Does the sight ?
— and the fact established beyond all question by
the foregoing reasoning is, that it does not.

"What makes people so reluctant and unwilling to
accept this fact is, that they suppose we are requiring
them to believe that visible objects, that is, colours,
are not seen to be external to their own visible
bodies ; that, for instance, a colour, at the other end
of the room, is not seen to be external to their hand,
or the point of their own nose. They think that when
such a colour is said not to be seen to be external to
the eye, that we are maintaining that they must see
it to be in close proximity to their own visible nose

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 329

or eyebrows. But, in truth, we are maintaining no
position so completely at variance with the fact, and
we are requiring of them no such extravagant and.
impossible belief. As well might they conceive that
we are inclined to maintain that the chairs are not
seen to be external to the table. Now, on the con-
trary, we hold it to be an undeniable fact (and so
does Berkeley), that all visible objects are seen to be
external, and at a distance from one another; that
objects at the end of the street, or at the end of the
great ranges of astronomy, are all seen to be very far
removed from the visible features of our own faces ;
but we deny that these objects, and our own noses
among the number, are seen to be external, or at any
distance at all from our own sight ; simply for this
reason, that our sight is unable to see itself. How
can we see a thing to be at any distance whatsoever
from a thing which we don't see ? Suppose a person
were privately to bury a guinea somewhere, and then,
pointing to St Paul's, were to ask a friend, How far
is my guinea buried from that cathedral ? What
judgment could the person so interrogated form —
what answer could he give ? obviously none. The
guinea might be buried under St Paul's foundation —
it might be buried at Timbuctoo. There are no data
furnished, from which a judgment may be formed,
and a reply given. In the same way, with regard to
sight and its objects ; the requisite data for a judg-
ment are not supplied to this sense. One datum is
given, the visible object; but the other necessary

~

330 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

datum is withheld, namely, the visibleness of the
organ itself. Therefore, by sight, we can form no
i judgment at all with respect to the distance at which
objects may be placed from the organ ; or perhaps it
would be more proper to say, that we do form an
obscure judgment, to the effect that all visible objects
lie within the sphere of the eye ; and that where the
object is, there also is the organ which apprehends
it. Or, to repeat the proof in somewhat different
words, we affirm, that before sight can judge of the
distance of objects from itself, or that they are dis-
tant at all, it must first localise both itself and the
object. But it can only localise these two by seeing
them, for sight can do nothing except by seeing.
But it cannot see both of them ; it can only see one
of them. Therefore, it cannot localise both of them,
and hence the conclusion is driven irresistibly home,
that it can form no judgment that they are in any
degree distant from one another.

Touching this point Mr Bailey puts forth an aver-
ment, which really makes us blush for the specula-
tive capacity of our country. Speaking of the case
of the young man who was couched by Cheselden,
he remarks, in support of his own doctrine, that
visible objects are seen to be external to the sight ;
and in commenting on the young man's statement,
that "he thought all objects whatever touched his
eyes as what he felt did his skin," he remarks, we
say, upon this, that it clearly proves " visible objects
appeared external even to his body, to say nothing of

BEKKELEY AND IDEALISM. 331

his mind." External even to his body ! Surely Mr
Bailey did not expect that the young man was to
perceive visible things to be in his visible body.
Surely he does not think that the hands of Berke-
ley's argument would have been strengthened by any
such preposterous revelation. Surely he is not such
a crude speculator as to imagine that the mind is in
the body, like the brain, the liver, or the lungs ; and
that to bear out Berkeley's theory, it was necessary
that the visible universe, of which the visible body
is a part, should be seen to be in this mind internal
again in its turn to the visible body. Truly this is
ravelling the hank of thought with a vengeance.

Berkeley's doctrine with regard to the outness of
visible objects, we would state to be this : All these
objects are directly seen to be external to each other,
but none of them are seen or can be seen, for the
reason above given, to be external to the eye itself.
He holds that the knowledge that they are external
to the eye — that they possess a real and tangible out-
ness independent of the sight — is entirely brought
about by the operation of another sense — the sense of
touch. He further maintains that the tactual sensa-
tions having been repeatedly experienced along with
the visual sensations, which yield no such judgment,
these visual sensations come at length of themselves,
and in the absence of the tactual impressions, to sug-
gest objects as external to the eye, that is, as endowed
with real and tangible outness ; and so perfect is the
association, that the seer seems to originate out of

332 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

his own native powers, a knowledge for which he is
wholly indebted to his brother the toucher.

Now Mr Bailey views the doctrine in a totally
different light. According to him Berkeley's doctrine
is, that not only the tangible outness of objects, or
their distance from the eye, is not immediately per-
ceived by sight, but that not even their visible out-
ness or their distance from one another is so perceived.
He thinks that, according to Berkeley, the latter kind
of outness is suggested by certain " internal feelings "
— Heaven knows what they are ! — no less than the
former. He does not see that this " internal feeling,"
as he calls it, is itself the very sensation of visible
outness as above explained. He seems to think that,
according to Berkeley, the eye does not even see
visible things to be out of one another — out of our
visible bodies for example; but that the disintrica-
tion of them is accomplished by a process of sugges-
tion. No wonder that he made dreadful havoc with
the Bishop's doctrine of association. The following
is his statement of that doctrine: —

" Outness is not immediately perceived by sight,
but only suggested to our thoughts by certain visible
ideas and sensations attending vision. Berkeley (he
continues) thus in fact represents the visual percep-
tion of objects as external, to be an instance of the
association of ideas. If, however, he had clearly
analysed the process in question, he would have per-
ceived the fallacy into which he had fallen. It is
impossible that the law of mind, by which one thing

BEKKELEY AND IDEALISM. 333

suggests another, should produce any such effect as
the one ascribed to it. Suppose we have an internal
feeling A, which has never been attended with any
sensation or perception of outness, and that it is ex-
perienced at the same time with the external sensa-
tion B. After A and B have been thus experienced
together, they will, according to the law of associa-
tion, suggest each other. When the internal feeling
occurs, it will bring to mind the external one, and
vice versa. But this is all* Let there be a thousand
repetitions of the internal feeling with the external
sensation, and all that can be effected will be, that
the one will invariably suggest the other. Berkeley's
theory, however, demands more than this. He main-
tains that because the internal feeling has been found
to be accompanied by the external one, it will, when
experienced alone, not only suggest the external sen-
sation, but absolutely be regarded as external itself,
or rather be converted into the perception of an ex-
ternal object. It may be asserted, without hesitation,
that there is nothing in the whole operations of the
human mind analogous to such a process."

There certainly is nothing in the mental operations
analogous to such a process, and just as little is there
anything in the whole writings of Berkeley analo-
gous to such a doctrine. Throughout this statement,
the fallacy and the mistake are entirely on the side
of Mr Bailey. The " outness " which he here declares
Berkeley to hold as suggested, he evidently imagines
to be visible outness : whereas Berkeley distinctly

334 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

holds that visible outness is never suggested by sight
at all, or by any " visible ideas or sensations attend-
ing vision," and that it is only tangible outness which
is so suggested. " Sight " (says Berkeley, Works, vol.
i. 147) * doth not suggest or in any way inform us that
the visible object we immediately perceive exists at a
distance? What Berkeley maintains is, that vision
with its accompanying sensations suggests to us an-
other kind of outness and of objects which are invis-
ible, and which always remain invisible, but which
may be perceived by touch, provided we go through
the process necessary for such a perception. He
admits the immediate and unsuggested sensation of
visible outness in the sense explained above — that
all visible things are directly seen to be external to
our visible bodies, only denying (and we think we
have assigned good grounds for this denial) that any
jof them are seen to be external to our own invisible
sight. He maintains that this direct sensation of
visible outness comes through experience to suggest
the perception of a different, namely, of a tangible and
invisible, outness. He asserts (we shall here adopt
Mr Bailey's language, with some slight variation
giving our view of the case), that in consequence of
there having been a thousand repetitions of the sen-
sation of visible outness with the sensation of tangible
outness, the one will invariably suggest the other.
And his theory demands no more than this. He
never maintains that because the sensation of visible
outness — already explained, we beg the reader to keep

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 335

in mind, as the sensation of visible objects as exter-
nal to one another, but not as external to the sense
perceiving them — he never maintains that because
this sensation has been found, to be accompanied by
the sensation of tangible outness, that it will, when
experienced alone, not only suggest the tangible out-
ness, but absolutely be regarded as tangible itself, or
be converted into the perception of a tangible object.
He never, we say, maintains anything like this, as
Mr Bailey represents him to do. It may therefore be
asserted with hesitation, that there is nothing in the
whole history of philosophical criticism analogous to
the blunder of his reviewer. Nothing is easier than
to answer a disputant when we confute, as his, a
theory of our making.

Berkeley informs us, that visual sensation, that is,
the direct perception of the outness of visible things
with regard to one another, having been frequently
accompanied with sensations of their tactual outness
and tactual magnitudes, comes at length, through the
law of association, to suggest to us that they are
external to the eye, although we never see them to
be so ; and to suggest this to us, of course as the
word suggestion implies, in the absence of the tactual
sensations. Thus the visual sensations which, in the
absence of the tactual sensations, call up the tactual
sensations, resemble a language, the words of which,
in the absence of things, call up the ideas of things.
Thus the word rose, in the absence of a rose, suggests
the idea of that flower ; and thus a visible rose, not

336 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

seen as external to the eye, does, in the absence
of a tangible or touched rose, suggest a tangible
or touched rose as an object external to the eye.
" But," says Mr Bailey, " this comparison completely
fails. . To make it tally, we must suppose that the
audible name, by suggesting the visible flower, be-
comes itself a visible object." What ! does he then
suppose that Berkeley holds that the visible flower,
by suggesting the tangible flower, becomes itself a
tangible object ? To make Mr Bailey's objection tell,
Berkeley must be represented as holding this mon-
strous opinion, which he most assuredly never did.

Our limits prevent us from following either Berke-
ley or his reviewer through the further details of this
speculation. But we think that we have pointed out
with sufficient distinctness Mr Bailey's fundamental
blunder, upon which the whole of his supposed refu-
tation of Berkeley is built, and which consists in
this: that he conceives the Bishop to maintain that
the perception of visible outness, or the distance of
objects among themselves, is as much the result of
suggestion as the knowledge of tangible outness, or
the distance of objects from the organ of sight. He
seems to think Berkeley's doctrine to be this : that
our visual sensations are mere internal feelings, in
which there is originally and directly no kind of
outness at all involved, not even the outness of one
visible thing from another visible thing; and that
this outness is in some way or other suggested to the
mind by these internal feelings. " But," says he,

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 337

" Berkeley's theory demands more than this ; for the
internal feeling not only suggests the idea of the
external ohject, but by doing so suggests the idea,
or, if I may use figure, infuses the perception of its
own externality." And he cannot understand how
this result should be produced by any process of
association. But neither does Berkeley's theory de-
mand that it should, for this "internal feeling" is
itself, as we have already remarked, the direct per-
ception of visible outness — that is to say, the outness
of objects in relation, for instance, to our own visible
bodies — and so far there is no suggestion at all in
the case, nor any occasion for any suggestion. Sug-
gestion comes into play when we judge that, over
and above the outness of objects viewed in relation
to themselves and our visible bodies, there is another
kind of outness connected with these objects, namely,
their outness in relation to the organ itself which
perceives them ; and this suggestion takes place only
after we have learned, through the experience of
touch, to localise that organ. Having thus indicated
the leading mistake which lies at the root of Mr
Bailey's attempted refutation, we shall bid adieu
both to him and Berkeley, and shall conclude by
hazarding one or two speculations of our own, in

support of the conclusions of the latter. ____

How do we come to judge that objects are external
to the eye as distinguished from our perception, that
they are external to one another, and how do we
come to judge that they possess a real magnitude

Y

338 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

quite different from their visible magnitude ? These
are the two fundamental questions of the Berkeleian
optics ; and in endeavouring to answer them, we
must go to work experimentally, and strive to ap-
prehend the virgin facts of seeing, uncombined with
any other facts we may have become acquainted with
from other sources. Let us suppose, then, that we
are merely an eye, which, however, as it is not yet
either tangible or localised, we shall call the soul, the
seer. Let this seer be provided with a due comple-
ment of objects, which are mere colours in the form
of houses, clouds, rivers, woods, and mountains.
Everything is excluded but sight and colours. No-
thing but pure seeing is the order of the day. Now,\ .
here it is obvious that the seer must pronounce it-|\j3^
self or its organ to be precisely commensurate in]
extent with the things seen. It may either suppose
the diameter of the landscape to be conformed to the
size of its diameter, or it may suppose its diameter
conformed to the size of the landscape. It is quite
immaterial which it does, but one or other of these
judgments it must form. The seer and the seen
must be pronounced to be coextensive with one
another. No judgment to a contrary effect, no judg-
ment that the organ is infinitely disproportioned to
its objects, is as yet possible. Well, we shall sup-
pose that these objects keep shifting up and down
within the sphere of the organ, growing larger and
smaller, fainter and brighter in colour, and so forth.
Still no new result takes place : there is still nothing

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 339

but simple seeing. Until at length one particular
bifurcated phenomenon, with black extremities at
one end and lateral appendages, each of them ter-
minating in a somewhat broad instrument, with five
points of rather a pinky hue, begins to stir. Ha !
what's this ? This is something new ; this is some-
thing very different from seeing. One of the objects
within the sight, one of our own visual phenomena
has evolved, by all that's wonderful ! a new set of
sensations entirely different from anything connected
with vision. We will call them muscular sensations.
As this is the only one of all the visual phenomena
which has evolved these new sensations, the attention
of the seer is naturally directed to its operations.
Let us then attend to it particularly. It moves into
close proximity with other visual objects, and here
another new and startling series of sensations ensues,
sensations which our seer never found to arise when
any of the other visual phenomena came together.
We will call these our sensations of touch. The
attention is now directed more particularly than ever
to the proceedings of this bifurcated phenomenon.
It raises one of the aforesaid lateral appendages, and
with one of the points in which it terminates, it feels
its way over the other portions of its surface. Cer-
tain portions of this touched surface are not visible ;
but the seer, by calling into play the muscular sen-
sations, that is, by moving the upper part of this
phenomenon, can bring many of them within its
sphere, and hence the seer concludes that all of the

340 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

felt portions would become visible, were no limit put
to these movements and muscular sensations. Very
well. This point, which occupies an infinitely small
space among the visual phenomena, continues its
manipulating progress, until it at length happens to
rest upon a very sensitive and orbed surface, about
its own size, situated in the upper part of the bifur-
cated object. And now what ensues ? Speaking out
of the information and experience which we have
as yet acquired, we should naturally say that merely
this can ensue ; that if the point (let us now call it
our finger) and the orbed surface on which it rests
are out of the sphere of sight, the seer has nothing to
do with it — that it is simply a case of touch : or if
the finger and the surface are within the sphere of
sight, that then the finger will merely hide from our
view a surface coextensive with itself, as it does in
other similar instances ; and that, in either case, all
the other objects of sight will be left as visible and
entire as ever. But no ; neither of these two results
is what ensues. What then does ensue ? This
astounding and almost inconceivable result ensues,
that the ivhole visual phenomena are suddenly ob-
literated as completely as if they had never been.
One very small visible point, performing certain
operations within the eye, and coming in contact
with a certain surface as small as itself, and which
must also be conceived as lying within the eye, not
only obliterates that small surface, but extinguishes
a whole landscape which is visibly many million

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 341

times larger than itself. If this result were not the
fact, it would be altogether incredible. From this
moment, then, a new world is revealed to us, in
which we find that, instead of the man and all visible
objects being in the eye, the eye is in the man ; and
that these objects being visibly external to the bifur-
cated phenomenon, whose operations we have been
superintending, and which we shall now call our-
selves, they must consequently be external (although
even yet they are never visibly so) to the eye also.
The seer, the great eye, within which we supposed
all this to be transacted, breaks, as it were, and falls
away ; while the little surface to which the forefinger
was applied, and which it covered, becomes, and
from this time henceforward continues to be, our
true eye. Thus, by a very singular process, do we
find ourselves, as it were, within our own eye, a pro-
cedure which is rescued from absurdity by this con-
sideration, that our eye itself, our tangible eye, is
also found within the primary eye, as we may call
it, which latter eye falling away when the experience
of touch commences, the man and the universe which
surrounds him start forth into their true place as
external to the seer, and the new secondary eye,
revealed by touch, becoming localised, shrinks into
its true proportions, now very limited when tactually
compared with the objects which fall under its in-
spection. And all this magical creation — all our
knowledge that objects are out of the eye, and that
the size of this organ bears an infinitely small pro-

342 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

portion to the real magnitude of objects — all this is
the work of the touch, and of the touch alone.1

Perhaps the following consideration may help the
reader to understand how the sight becomes in-
structed by the touch. Our natural visual judgment
undoubtedly is, as we have said, that the eye and
the landscape which it sees are precisely coextensive
with each other; and the natural conclusion must
be, that whatever surface is sufficient to cover the
one, must be sufficient to cover the other also.
But is this found to be the case ? By no means.
You lay your finger on your eye, and it completely
covers it. You then lay the same finger on the
landscape, and it does not cover, perhaps, the
hundred millionth part of its surface. Thus are the
judgments and conclusions of the eye corrected and
refuted by the experience of the finger, until, at
length, the eye actually believes that it sees things
to be larger than itself; a total mistake, however,
on its part, as Berkeley was the first to show; for
the object which it seems to see as greatly larger than
itself, is only suggested by another object which is
always smaller than itself. The small visible object
suggests the thought of a large tangible object, and
the latter it is which chiefly occupies the mind ; but

1 It may, perhaps, be thought that all this information might be
acquired by the simple act of closing our eyelids. But here the
tactual sensations are so faint that we might be doubtful whether
the veil was drawn over our eye or over the face of things. Our
limits prevent us from stating other objections to which this ex-
planation is exposed.

I

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 343

still it is never seen, it is merely suggested by the
other object which alone is presented to the vision.

By looking through a pair of spectacles, any one
may convince himself of the impossibility of our
seeing the real and tangible magnitude of things, or
of our seeing anything which exceeds the expansion
of the retina. A lofty tower, you will say, exceeds
the expansion of the retina, certainly a tangible, a
suggested tower, does so : but does a visible, a seen
tower, ever do so ? Make the experiment, good
reader, and you will find that it never does. Look,
then, at this tower from a small distance, through
a pair of spectacles, which form a sort of projected
retina, not much, if at all, larger than your real
retina. At first sight you will probably say that it
looks about a hundred feet high, and, at any rate,
that you see it to be infinitely larger than your own
eye. But look again, attending in some degree to
the size of your spectacle glasses, and you shall see
that it does not stretch across one half, or perhaps
one fourth, of their diameter. And if a fairy pencil,
as Adam Smith supposes, were to come between
your eye and the glass, the picture sketched by it
thereon, answering in the exactest conformity to the
dimensions of the tower you see, would be an image,
probably not the third of an inch high, or the hun-
dredth part of an inch broad. This is certainly not
what you seem to see, but this is certainly what you do
see. These are the dimensions into which your lofty
tower has shrunk. Now is this tower, seen to be

344 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

one-third of an inch high, and very much smaller
than the retina, represented by the spectacles — is this
tower another tower, seen to be a hundred feet high,
and infinitely larger than the retina, and existing out
of the mind in rerum natura ? or is not the latter
tower merely suggested by the former ideal one, in
consequence of the great disparity which touch, and
touch alone, has proved to exist between the thing see-
ing and the thing seen ? Unquestionably the latter
view of the matter is the true one ; seen objects are
always ideal, and always remain ideal; they have
no existence in rerum natura. They merely suggest
other objects of a real, or at least of a tangible kind,
with which they have no necessary, but merely an
arbitrary connection, established by custom and ex-
perience. So much upon the idealism of the eye.

In conclusion, we wish to hazard one remark on
the subject of inverted images depicted on the retina.
External objects, we are told, are represented on the
retina in an inverted position, or with their upper
parts pointing downwards. Now, in one sense this
may be true, but in another sense it appears to us to
be unanswerably false. Every visible object must
be conceived as made up of a great number of mini-
ma visibilia, or smallest visible points. From each
of these a cone of rays proceeds, with its base falling
on the pupil of the eye. Here the rays are refracted; ^
by the humours so as to form other cones, the apices
of which are projected on the retina. The cones of
rays proceeding from the upper minima visibilia of

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 345

the object are refracted into foci on the lower part
of the retina, while those coming from the lower
minima of the object are refracted into foci on the
upper part of the retina. So far the matter is per-
fectly demonstrable ; so far we have an image on the
retina, the lower parts of which correspond with the
upper parts of the object. But what kind of image
is it, what is the nature of the inversion which here
takes place ? We answer that it is an image in \
which not one single minimum is in itself reversed,
but in which all the minima are transposed merely
in relation to one another. The inversion regards
merely the relative position of the minima, and not \
the minima themselves. Thus, the upward part of
each minimum in the object must also point upwards
in the image on the retina. For what principle is
there in optics or in geometry, in physiology or in
the humours of the eye, to reverse it ? We do not
see how opticians can dispute this fact, except by
saying that these minima have no extension, and
consequently have neither an up nor a down; but
that is a position which we think they will hardly
venture to maintain. We can make our meaning
perfectly plain by the following illustrative diagram
— In the lines of figures,

A

B

c

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9

6

2-v^dc
3c£u*
4 &po

f
8

5
4
3
2

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1

346 BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.

let the line A be a string of six beads, each of which
is a minimum visibile, or smallest point from which a
cone of rays can come. Now, the ordinary optical
doctrine, as we understand it, is, that this string of
beads A falls upon the retina in an image in the
form of the row of figures B ; that is to say, in an
image in which the bead 1 is thrown with its head
downwards on the retina, and all the other beads in
the same way with their heads downwards. Now,
on the contrary, it appears to us demonstrable, that
the beads A must fall upon the retina in an image in
the form of the row of figures C ; that is to say, in
an image in which each particular bead or minimum
lies with its head upwards upon the retina. In the
annexed scheme our meaning, and the difference
between the two views, are made perfectly plain ;
and it is evident, that if the object were reduced to
only one minimum — the bead 2, for instance — there
would be no inversion, but a perfectly erect image of
it thrown upon the retina.

Now, there are just five different ways in which
the fact we have now stated may be viewed. It is
either a fact notoriously announced in all or in most
optical works ; and if it is so, we are surprised
(though our reading has not been very extensive in
that way) that we should never have come across
it. Or else it is a fact so familiar to all optical
writers, and so obvious and commonplace in itself,
that they never have thought it necessary or worth
their while to announce it. But if this be the case,

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM. 347

we cannot agree with them; we think that it is a
fact as recondite and as worthy of being stated as
many others that are emphatically insisted on in the
science. Or else, though neither notorious nor fami-
liar, it may have been stated by some one or by some
few optical writers. If so, we should thank any one
who would be kind enough to refer us to the works
in which it is to be found. Or else, fourthly, it is a
false fact, and admits of being demonstrably dis-
proved. If so, we should like to see it done. Or
else, lastly, it is true, and a new, and a demonstrable
fact ; and if so, we now call upon all optical writers,
from this time henceforward, to adopt it. We do
not pretend to decide which of these views is the
true one. We look to Dr Brewster for a reply ; for
neither his, nor any other man's rationale of the
inverted images, appears to us to be at all complete
or satisfactorily made out without its admission.

MB BAILEY'S EEPLY TO AN ARTICLE IN
BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE

MR BAILEY'S EEPLY TO AN AETICLE IN
BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

We have just been favoured with a pamphlet from
Mr Bailey, entitled ' A Letter to a Philosopher, in
Reply to some Eecent Attempts to Vindicate Berke-
ley's Theory of Vision, and in further Elucidation
of its Unsoundness.' Our article on Mr Bailey's
review of Berkeley's theory, which appeared in
1 Blackwood's Magazine ' of June 1842, was one of
these attempts. Had the author merely attacked or
controverted our animadversions on his book, we
should probably have left the question to its fate,
and not have reverted to a subject, the discussion of
which, even in the first instance, may have been
deemed out of place in a journal not expressly philo-
sophical. There is, in general, little to be gained by
protracting such controversies. But, as Mr Bailey
accuses us, in the present instance, of having misre-
presented his views, we must be allowed to exculpate
ourselves from the charge of having dealt, even with

352 MB BAILEY S REPLY TO AX

unintentional unfairness, towards one whose opinions,
however much we may dissent from them, are cer-
tainly entitled to high respect and a candid exami-
nation, as the convictions of an able and zealous
inquirer after truth.

In our strictures on Mr Bailey's work, we re-
marked, that he had represented Berkeley as holding
that the eye is not directly and originally cognisant
of the outness of objects in relation to each other, or
of what we would call their reciprocal outness ; in
other words, we stated that, according to Mr Bailey,
Berkeley must be regarded as denying to the eye the
original intuition of space, either in length, breadth,
or solid depth. It was, however, only in reference
to one of his arguments, and to one particular divi-
sion of his subject, that we laid this representation
to his charge. Throughout the other parts of his
discussion, we by no means intended to say that such
was the view he took of the Berkeleian theory. Nor
are we aware of having made any statement to that
effect. If we did, we now take the opportunity of
remarking, that we restrict our allegation, as we
believe we formerly restricted it, to the single argu-
ment and distinction just mentioned, and hereafter
to be explained.

In his reply, Mr Bailey disavows the impeachment
in toto. He declares that he never imputed to
Berkeley the doctrine, that the eye is not directly
percipient of space in the two dimensions of length
and breadth. " The perception of this kind of dis-

ARTICLE IN BLACKWOOD S MAGAZINE. 353

tance," says he, " never formed the subject of con-
troversy with any one That we see

extension in two dimensions is admitted by all." —
(' Letter,' p. 10.) If it can be shown that the doctrine
which is here stated to be admitted by all philoso-
phers, is yet expressly controverted by the two meta-
physicians whom Mr Bailey appears to have studied
most assiduously, it is, at any rate, possible that
he may have overlooked, in his own writings, the
expression of an opinion which has escaped his
penetration in theirs. To convince himself, then,
how much he is mistaken in supposing that the
visual intuition of longitudinal and lateral extension
is admitted by all philosophers, he has but to turn to
the works of Dr Brown and the elder Mill. In argu-
ing that we have no immediate perception of visible
figure, Dr Brown not only virtually, but expressly,
asserts that the sight has no perception of extension
in any of its dimensions. Not to multiply quota-
tions, the following will, no doubt, be received as
sufficient : — " They (i.e., philosophers) have — I think
without sufficient reason — universally supposed that
the superficial extension of length and breadth be-
comes known to us by sight originally."1 Dr Brown
then proceeds to argue, with what success we are
not at present considering, that our knowledge of
extension and figure is derived from another source
than the sense of sight.

Mr James Mill, an author whom Mr Bailey fre-

1 Brown's ' Lectures, ' Lecture xxviii.
Z

354 MR BAILEY'S REPLY TO AN

quently quotes with approbation, and in confirmation
of his own views, is equally explicit. He maintains,
in the plainest terms, that the eye has no intuition
of space, or of the reciprocal outness of visible objects.
" Philosophy," says he, " has ascertained that we de-
rive nothing from the eye whatever but sensations
of colour ; that the idea of extension [he means in
its three dimensions] is derived from sensations not
in the eye, but in the muscular part of our frame."1
Thus, contrary to what Mr Bailey affirms, these two
philosophers limit the office of vision to the percep-
tion of mere colour or difference of colour, denying
to the eye the original perception of extension in any
dimension whatever. In their estimation, the intui-
tion of space is no more involved in our perception
of different colours than it is involved in our per-
ception of different smells or different sounds. Dr
Brown's doctrine, in which Mr Mill seems to concur,
is, that the perception of superficial extension no
more results from a certain expanse of the optic
nerve being affected by a variety of colours than it
results from a certain expanse of the olfactory nerve
being affected by a variety of odours.2 So much

1 Mill's 'Analysis,' vol. i. p. 73.

2 This reasoning of Dr Brown's is founded upon an assumed an-
alogy between the structure of the optic nerve, and the structure of
the olfactory nerves and other sensitive nerves, and is completely
disproved by the physiological observations of Treviranus, who has
shown that no such analogy exists : that the ends of the nervous
fibres in the retina, being elevated into distinct separate papillae,
enable us to perceive the extension and discriminate the position
of visible bodies ; while the nerves of the other senses, being less

ARTICLE IN BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. 355

for Mr Bailey's assertion, that all philosophers admit
the perception of extension in two dimensions.

But, of course, our main business is with the
expression of his own opinion. In rebutting our
charge, he maintains that " the visibility of angular
distance (that is, of extension laterally) is assumed,
by implication, as part of Berkeley's doctrine, in
almost every chapter of my book." — (' Letter,' p. 13.)
That word almost is a provident saving clause ; for
we undertake to show that not only is the very
reverse assumed, by implication, as part of Berkeley's
doctrine, in the single chapter to which we confined
our remarks, but that, in another part of his work,
it is expressly avowed as the only alternative by
which, in the author's opinion, Berkeley's consistency
can be preserved.

At the outset of his inquiry, Mr Bailey divides
his discussion into two branches : first, Whether
objects are originally seen to be external, or at any
distance at all from the sight; and, secondly, Sup-
posing it admitted that they are seen to be external,
or at some distance from the sight, whether they are
all seen in the same plane, or equally near. It was
to the former of these questions that we exclusively

delicately defined, are not fitted to furnish us with any such per-
ception, or to aid us in making any such discrimination. See
'Miiller's Physiology, ' translated by W. Baly, M.D., vol. ii. pp.
1073, 1074. Although the application of Treviranus's discovery to
the refutation of Dr Brown's reasoning is our own, we may remark,
in justice to an eminent philosopher, that it was Sir William
Hamilton who first directed our attention to the fact as established
by that great physiologist.

356 MR BAILEY'S REPLY TO AX

confined our remarks ; * and it was in reference to
it, and to an important argument evolved by Mr
Bailey in the course of its discussion, that we charged
him with fathering on Berkeley the doctrine which
he now disavows as his interpretation of the Bishop's
opinion. He further disputes the relevancy of the
question about our perception of lateral extension,
and maintains that distance in a direction from the
percipient, or what we should call protensive dis-
tance, is the only matter in dispute ; and that it is
a misconception of the scope of Berkeley's essay to
imagine otherwise. The relevancy of the question
shall be disposed of afterwards. In the meantime,
the question at issue is, Can the allegation which
we have laid to Mr Bailey's charge be proved to be
the fact, or not ?

In discussing the first of the two questions, it was
quite possible for Mr Bailey to have represented
Berkeley as holding, that visible objects, though
not seen to be external to the sight, were yet seen
to be out of each other, or laterally extended within

1 Mr Bailey seems disposed to carp at us for having confined our
remarks to this first question, and for not having given a more
complete review of his book. But the reason why we cut short
our critique is obvious ; for if it be proved, as we believe it can,
that objects are originally seen at no distance whatever from the
sight, it becomes quite superfluous to inquire what appearance
they would present if originally seen at some distance from the
sight. The way in which we disposed of the first question, how-
ever imperfect our treatment of it may have been, necessarily pre-
vented us from entering upon the second ; and our review, with
all its deficiencies, was thus a complete review of his book, though
not a review of his complete book.

article in Blackwood's magazine. 357

the organism or the mind. But Mr Bailey makes
no such representation of the theory, and the whole
argument which pervades the chapter in which the
first question is discussed, is founded on the nega-
tion of any such extension. All visible extension,
he tells us, must, in his opinion, be either plane or
solid. Now he will scarcely maintain that he re-
garded Berkeley as holding that we perceive solid
extension within the organism of the eye. Neither
does he admit that, according to Berkeley, and in
reference to this first question, plane extension is
perceived within the organism of the eye. For
when he proceeds to the discussion of the second
of the two questions, he remarks that "we must,
at this stage of the argument, consider the theory
under examination, as representing that we see all
things originally in the same plane;"1 obviously
implying that he had not as yet considered the
theory as representing that we see things originally
in the same plane : in other words, plainly admitting
that, in his treatment of the first question, he had
not regarded the theory as representing that we see
things originally under the category of extension
at all.

But if any more direct evidence on this point
were wanted, it is to be found in the section of his
work which treats of "the perception of figure."
In the chapter in which he discusses the first of
the two questions, he constantly speaks of Berkeley's

1 ' Review of Berkeley's Theory, ' p. 35.

358 MR bailey's reply to an

theory as representing that "our visual sensations,
or what we ultimately term visible objects, are origi-
nally mere internal feelings." The expression mere
internal feelings, however, is ambiguous ; for, as we
have said, it might still imply that Mr Bailey viewed
the theory as representing that there was an exten-
sion, or reciprocal outness of objects within the retina.
But this doubt is entirely removed by a passage in
the section alluded to, which proves that, in Mr
Bailey's estimation, these mere internal feelings not
only involve no such extension, but that there would
be an inconsistency in supposing they did. In this
section he brings forward Berkeley's assertion, " that
neither solid nor plane figures are immediate objects
of sight." He then quotes a passage in which the
Bishop begs the reader not to stickle too much
" about this or that phrase, or manner of expression,
but candidly to collect his meaning from the whole
sum and tenor of his discourse." And then Mr
Bailey goes on to say, " Endeavouring, in the spirit
here recommended, to collect the author's meaning
when he affirms that the figures we see are neither
plane nor solid, it appears to me to be a part or
consequence of his doctrine already examined, which
asserts that visible objects are only internal feel-
ings."1 We can now be at no loss to understand
what Mr Bailey means, and conceives Berkeley to
mean, by the expression "mere internal feelings."
He evidently means feelings in which no kind of

1 'Review of Berkeley's Theory,' p. 136.

ARTICLE IX BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. 359

extension whatever is involved: for, in the next
page, he informs us that all visual extension, or
extended figure, "must be apprehended as either
plane or solid, and that it is impossible even to
conceive it otherwise." Consequently, if the figures
we see are, as Berkeley says, apprehended neither as
plane nor as solid, Mr Bailey, entertaining the no-
tions he does on the subject of extension, must regard
liim as holding that they cannot be apprehended as
extended at all ; and accordingly such is the express
representation he gives of the theory in the passage
just quoted, where he says that "the doctrine of
Berkeley, which affirms that the figures we see are
neither plane nor solid [that is, are extended in no
direction, according to Mr Bailey's ideas of exten-
sion], appears to him to be a part of the doctrine
which asserts that visible objects are only internal
feelings." Now if that be not teaching, in the plain-
est terms, that, according to Berkeley, no species of
extension is implied in the internal feelings of vision,
we know not what language means, and any one
thought may be identical with its very opposite.

Here we might let the subject drop, having, as we
conceive, said quite enough to prove the truth of
our allegation that, in reference to the first question
discussed, in which our original visual sensations
are represented by Berkeley to be mere internal
feelings, Mr Bailey understood and stated those
feelings to signify sensations in which no perception
of extension whatever was involved. However, as Mr

360 MR bailey's reply to an

Bailey further remarks that, "although Berkeley's
doctrine about visible figures being neither plane
nor solid, is thus consistent with his assertion that
they are internal feelings, it is in itself contradic-
tory," ! we shall contribute a few remarks to show
that while, on the one hand, the negation of exten-
sion is not required to vindicate the consistency of
Berkeley's assertion, that visible objects are internal
feelings, neither, on the other hand, is there any
contradiction in Berkeley's holding that objects are
not seen either as planes or as solids, and are yet
apprehended as extended. Mr Bailey alleges that
we are " far more successful in involving ourselves
in subtle speculations of our own, than in faithfully
guiding our readers through the theories of other
philosophers." Perhaps in the present case we shall
be able to thread a labyrinth where our reviewer
has lost his clue, and, in spite of the apparent con-
tradiction by which Mr Bailey has been gravelled,
we shall, perhaps, be more successful than he in
" collecting Berkeley's meaning from the whole sum
and tenor of his discourse."

First, with regard to the contradiction charged
upon the Bishop. When we open our eyes, what do
we behold ? "We behold points— mm^ma visibilia —
out of one another. Do we see these points to be in
the same plane ? Certainly not. If they are in the
same plane, we learn this from a very different ex-
perience from that of sight. Again, do we see these

1 'Review of Berkeley's Theory,' p. 137.

ARTICLE IN BLACKWOOD S MAGAZINE. 361

points to be not in the same plane ? Certainly not.
If the points are not in the same plane, we learn this
too from a very different experience than that of
sight. All that we see is, that the points are out of
one another ; and this simply implies the perception
of extension, without implying the perception either
of plane or of solid extension. Thus, by the observa-
tion of a very obvious fact, which, however, Mr Bailey
has overlooked, is Berkeley's assertion that visible
objects are apprehended as extended, and yet not
apprehended either as planes or solids, relieved from
every appearance of contradiction.

It must, however, be admitted that Mr Bailey has
much to justify him in his opinion that extension
must be apprehended either as plane or as solid.
None of Berkeley's followers, we believe, have ever
dreamt of conceiving it otherwise ; and, finding in
their master's work the negation of solid extension
specially insisted on, they leapt to the conclusion
that the Bishop admitted the original perception of
plane extension. But Berkeley makes no such
admission. He places the perception of plane ex-
tension on precisely the same footing with that
of solid extension. " We see planes," says he, " in
the same way that we see solids." x And the wis-
dom of the averment is obvious ; for the affirmation
of plane extension involves the negation of solid
extension, but this negation involves the conception
(visually derived) of solid extension ; but the admis-

1 Essay, § 158.

362 MR bailey's reply to an

sion of that conception, so derived, would be fatal to
the Berkeleian theory. Therefore its author wisely
avoids the danger by holding that in vision we have
merely the perception of what the Germans would
call the Auseinanderseyn, that is, the asunder ness, of
things — a perception which implies no judgment as
to whether the things are secerned in plane or in
protensive space.

With regard to the supposition that, in order to
preserve Berkeley's consistency, it was necessary for
him to teach that our visual sensations (colours
namely), being internal feelings, could involve the
perception neither of plane nor of solid extension —
that is to say, of no extension at all, according to Mr
Bailey's ideas — we shall merely remark that there
appears to us to be no inconsistency in holding, as
Berkeley does, that these colours, though originally
internal to the sight, are nevertheless perceived as
extended among themselves.

We shall now say a few words on the relevancy of
the question, for Mr Bailey denies that this question
concerning the reciprocal outness of visible objects
ought to form any element in the controversy. We
shall show, however, that one of his most important
arguments depends entirely on the view that may be
taken of this question ; and that while the argument
alluded to would be utterly fatal to Berkeley's theory,
if the perception of reciprocal outness were denied,
it is perfectly harmless if the perception in question
be admitted.

article in Blackwood's magazine. 363

Mr Bailey's fundamental and reiterated objection
to Berkeley's theory is, that it requires us to hold
that conceptions or past impressions derived from
one sense (the touch) are not merely recalled when
another sense (the sight) executes its functions, but
are themselves absolutely converted into the present
intuitions of that other sense. In his own words
('Eeview,' p. 69), the theory is said to require "a
transmutation of the conceptions derived from touch
into the perceptions of sight." " According to Berke-
ley," says he (' Eeview,' p. 22), " an internal feeling
(i.e., a visual sensation) and an external sensation
(i.e., a tactual sensation) having been experienced at
the same time: the internal feeling, when it afterwards
occurs, not only suggests the idea, but, by doing so,
suggests the idea, or, if I may use the figure, infuses
the perception of its own externality. Berkeley thus
attributes to suggestion an effect contrary to its
nature, which, as in the case of language, is simply
to revive in our conception what has been previously
perceived by the sense."

Now, this objection would be altogether insur-
mountable if it were true, or if it were a part of
Berkeley's doctrine, that the sight has no original
intuition of space or of the reciprocal outness of its
objects — in other words, of colours out of colours ;
for it being admitted that the sight has ultimately
such a perception, it would be incumbent on the
Berkeleian to show how conceptions derived from
another sense, or how perceptions belonging to

364 MR bailey's reply to an

another sense, could be converted into that percep-
tion. We agree with Mr Bailey in thinking that no
process of association could effect this conversion ;
that if we did not originally see colours to be out of
each other, and the points of the same colour to be
out of each other, we could never so see them ; and
that his argument, when thus based on the negation
of all original visual extension, and on the supposi-
tion that the touch is the sole organ of every species
of externality, would remain invulnerable.

But, with the admission of the visual intuition of
space, the objection vanishes, and the argument is
shorn of all its strength. This admission relieves
the theory from the necessity of maintaining that
conceptions derived from touch are transmuted into
the perceptions of sight. It attributes to the sight
all that ever truly belongs to it — namely, the percep-
tion of colours out of one another; it provides the
visual intuitions with an externality of their own,
and the theory never demands that they should
acquire any other ; and it leaves to these visual in-
tuitions the office of merely suggesting to the mind
tactual impressions, with which they have been in-
variably associated in place. We say in place; and
it will be found that there is no contradiction in our
saying so when we shall have shown that it is the
touch, and not the sight, which establishes a proten-
sive interval between the organ and the sensations of
vision.

Visible extension, then, or the perception of colours

article ix blackwood's magazine. 365

external to colours, being admitted, Mr Bailey's argu-
ment, if lie still adheres to it, must be presented to
us in this form. He must maintain that the theory
requires that the objects of touch should not only be
suggested by the visual objects with which they have
been associated, but that they should actually be
seen. And then he must maintain that no power of
association can enable us to see an object which can
only be touched — a position which, certainly, no one
will controvert. The simple answer to all which is,
that we never do see tangible objects, that the theory
never requires we should, and that no power of asso-
ciation is necessary to account for a phenomenon
which never takes place.

We cannot help thinking that not a little of the
misconception on this subject which prevails in the
writings of Mr Bailey, and, we may add, of many
other philosophers, originates in the supposition that
we identify vision with the eye in the mere act of
seeing, and in their taking it for granted that sight
of itself informs us that we possess such an organ as
the eye. Of course, if we suppose that we know in-
stinctively, or intuitively, from the mere act of seeing,
that the eye is the organ of vision, that it forms a
part of the body we behold, and is located in the
head, it requires no conjurer to prove that we must
have an instinctive or intuitive knowledge of visible
things as larger than that organ, and, consequently,
as external to it. In this case, no process of associa-
tion is necessary to account for our knowledge of the

366 MR BAILEY'S REPLY TO AN

distance of objects. That knowledge must be directly
given in the very function and exercise of vision, as
every one will admit, without going to the expense
of an octavo volume to have it proved.

But we hold that no truth in mental philosophy is
more incontestable than this, that the sight originally,
and of itself, furnishes us with no knowledge of the
eye, as we now know that organ to exist. It does
not inform us that we have an eye at all. And here
we may hazard an observation, which, simple as it
is, appears to us to be new, and not unimportant
in aiding us to unravel the mysteries of sensation ;
which observation is, that, in no case whatever, does
any sense inform us of the existence of its appropri-
ate organ, or of the relation which subsists between
that organ and its objects, but that the interposition
of some other sense 1 is invariably required to give us
this information. This truth, which we believe holds
good with regard to all the senses, is most strikingly
exemplified in the case of vision, as we shall now
endeavour to illustrate.

Let us begin by supposing that man is a mere
" power of seeing." Under this supposition, we must

1 It would not be difficult to show, that as, on the one hand,
distance is not involved in the original intuitions of sight, so, on the
other hand, proximity is not involved in the original intuitions of
touch ; but that, while it is the touch which establishes an interval
between the organ and the objects of sight, it is the sight which
establishes no interval between the organ and the objects of touch.
Sight thus pays back every fraction of the debt it has incurred to
its brother sense. This is an interesting subject, but we can only
glance at it here.

ARTICLE IN BLACKWOOD S MAGAZINE. 367

hold that the periphery of vision is one and the same
with the periphery of visible space; and the two
peripheries being identical, of course whatever objects
lie within the sphere of the one must lie within the
sphere of the other also. Perhaps, strictly speaking,
it is wrong to say that these objects are apprehended
as internal to the sight; for the conception of in-
ternality implies the conception of externality, and
neither of these conceptions can, as yet, be realised.
But it is obvious what the expression internal means ;
and it is unobjectionable, when understood to signify
that the Seeing Power, the Seeing Act, and the Seen
Things, coexist in a synthesis in which there is no
interval or discrimination. For, suppose that we
know instinctively that the seen things occupy a
locality separate from the sight. But that implies
that we instinctively know that the sight occupies a
locality separate from them. But such a supposition
is a falling back upon the notion just reprobated,
that the mere act of seeing can indicate its own organ,
or can localise the visual phenomena in the eye — a
position which, we presume, no philosopher will be
hardy enough to maintain, when called upon to do so,
broadly and unequivocally. The conclusion, there-
fore, is irresistible, that, in mere vision, the sight and
its objects cling together in a union or synthesis,
which no function of that sense, and no knowledge
imparted to us by it (and, according to the supposi-
tion, we have, as yet, no other knowledge), can enable
us to discriminate or dissolve. Where the seeing is,

368 MR BAILEYS EEPLY TO AN

there is the thing seen ; and where the thing seen is,
there is the seeing of it.

But man is not a mere seeing animal. He has
other senses besides : He has, for example, the sense
of touch, and one of the most important offices which
this sense performs, is to break up the identity of co-
hesion which subsists between sight and its objects.
And how ? We answer, by teaching us to associate
vision in general, or the abstract condition regulating
our visual impressions, with the presence of the small
tangible body we call the eye, and vision in particu-
lar, or the individual sensations of vision (i.e., colours),
with the presence of immeasurably larger bodies re-
vealed to us by touch, and tangibly external to the
tangible eye. Sight, as we have said, does not inform
us that its sensations are situated in the eye : it does
not inform us that we have an eye at all. Neither
does touch inform us that our visual sensations are
located in the eye. It does not lead us to associate
with the eye any of the visual phenomena or opera-
tions in the first instance. If it did, it would, firstly,
either be impossible for it afterwards to induce us to
associate them with the presence of tangible bodies
distant and different from the eye : or, secondly, such
an association would merely give birth to the ab-
stract knowledge or conclusion, that these bodies were
in one place, while the sensations suggesting them
were felt to be associated with something in another
place ; colour would not be seen — as it is — incarnated
with body: or, thirdly, we should be compelled to

ARTICLE IN BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. 369

postulate for the eye, as many philosophers have
done, in our opinion, most unwarrantably, " a faculty
of projection," * by which it might dissolve the asso-
ciation between itself and its sensations, throwing off
the latter in the form of colours over the surface of
things, and reversing the old Epicurean doctrine that
perception is kept up by a transit to the sensorium
of the ghosts or simulacra of things,

" Quae, quasi membranse, sumrao tie corpore reram
Dereptse, volitant ultro citroque per auras. " 2

It is difficult to say whether the hypothesis of
" cast-off films " is more absurd when we make the
films come from things to us as spectral effluxes, or
go from us to them in the semblance of colours.

But according to the present view no such incom-
prehensible faculty, no such crude and untenable
hypothesis is required. Before the touch has in-
formed us that we have an eye, before it has led us
to associate anything visual with the eye, it has al-
ready taught us to associate in place the sensations
of vision (colours) with the presence of tangible ob-
jects which are not the eye. Therefore, when the
touch discovers the eye, and induces us to associate
vision in some way with it, it cannot be the particular
sensations of vision called colours which it leads us
to associate with that organ; for these have been

1 We observe that even Miiller speaks of the "faculty of projec-
tion " as if he sanctioned and adopted the hypothesis. — See ' Physi-
ology,' vol. ii. p. 1167.

2 Lucretius, iv. 31.

2 A

370 MR BAILEY'S REPLY TO AN

already associated with something very different. If
it be not colours, then what is it that the touch com-
pels us to associate with the eye ? We answer that
it is the abstract condition of impressions as the
general law on which all seeing depends, but as quite
distinct from the particular visual sensations appre-
hended in virtue of the observance of that law.

Nor is it at all difficult to understand how this
general condition comes to be associated with the eye,
and how the particular visual sensations come to be
associated with something distant from the eye : and
further, how this association of the condition with
one thing, and of the sensations with another thing
(an association established by the touch and not by
the sight), dissolves the primary synthesis of seeing
and colours. It is to be observed that there are two
stages in the process by which this secernment is
brought about — First, the stage hi which the visual
phenomena are associated with things different from
the organ of vision, the very existence of which is as
yet unknown. Let us suppose, then, the function of
sight to be in operation. We behold a visible object
— a particular colour. Let the touch now come into
play. We feel a tangible object — say a book. Now
from the mere fact of the visible and the tangible
object being seen and felt together, we could not asso-
ciate them in place ; for it is quite possible that the
tangible object may admit of being withdrawn, and
yet the visible object remain : and if so, no associa-
tion of the two in place can be established. But this

article ix Blackwood's magazine. 371

is a point that can only be determined by experience;
and what says that wise instructor ? We withdraw
the tangible object. The visible object, too, disap-
pears : it leaves its place. We replace the tangible
object — the visible object reappears in static quo.
There is no occasion to vary the experiment. If we
find that the visible object invariably leaves its place
when the tangible object leaves its, and that the one
invariably comes back when the other returns, we
have brought forward quite enough to establish an
inevitable association in place between the two. The
two places are henceforth regarded not as two, but as
one and the same.

By the aid of the touch, then, we have associated
the visual phenomena with things which are not the
organ of vision ; and well it is for us that we have
done so betimes, and before we were aware of the
eye's existence. Had the eye been indicated to us
in the mere act of seeing, had we become apprised
of its existence before we had associated our visual
sensations with the tangible objects constituting the
material universe, the probability, nay the certainty,
is that we would have associated them with this eye,
and that then it would have been as impossible for
us to break up the association between colours and
the organ, as it now is for us to dissolve the union
between colours and material things. In which case
we should have remained blind, or as bad as blind ;
brightness would have been in the eye when it
ought to have been in the sun; greenness would

372 MR BAILEY'S REPLY TO AX

have been in the retina when it ought to have been
in the grass. A most wise provision of nature it
certainly is, by which our visual sensations are dis-
posed of in the right way before we obtain any
knowledge of the eye. And most wisely has nature
seconded her own scheme by obscuring all the
sources from which that knowledge might be de-
rived. The light eyelids — the effortless muscular
apparatus performing its ministrations so gently as
to be almost unfelt — the tactual sensations so imper-
ceptible when the eye is left to its own motions, so
keen when it is invaded by an exploring finger, and
so anxious to avoid all contact by which the exist-
ence of the organ might be betrayed. All these are
so many means adopted by nature to keep back
from the infant seer all knowledge of his own eye —
a knowledge which, if developed prematurely, would
have perverted the functions, if not rendered nuga-
tory the very existence, of the organ.

But, secondly, we have to consider the stage of the
process in which vision is in some way associated
with an object which is not any of the things with
which the visual sensations are connected. It is
clear that the process is not completed — that our
task, which is to dissolve the primary synthesis of
vision and its phenomena, is but half executed,
unless such an object be found. For though we have
associated the visual sensations (colours) with some-
thing different from themselves, still vision clings to
them without a hair's-breadth of interval, and pursues

aeticle in Blackwood's magazine. 373

them whithersoever they go. As far, then, as we
have yet gone, it cannot be said that our vision is felt
or known to be distanced from the fixed stars even
by the diameter of a grain of sand. The synthesis
of sight and colour is not yet discriminated. How,
then, is the interval interposed ? We answer, by
the discovery of a tangible object in a different place
from any of the tangible objects associated with
colour; and then by associating, in some way or
other, the operations of vision with this object. Such
an object is discovered in the eye. Now, as has
frequently been said, we cannot associate colours or
the visual sensations with this eye; for these have
been already disposed of otherwise. What, then, do
we associate with it — and how ? We find, upon
experiment, that our apprehension of the various
visual sensations depends on the presence and parti-
cular location of this small tangible body. We find
that the whole array of visual phenomena disappear
when it is tactually covered, that they reappear
when it is reopened, and so forth. Thus we come
in some way to associate vision with it — not as
colour, however, not as visual sensation. We regard
the organ and its dispositions merely as a general
condition regulating the apprehension of the visual
sensations, and no more.

Thus, by attending to the two associations that
occur, — the association (in place) of visual sensations
with tangible bodies that are not the eye ; and the
association (in place) of vision with a small tangible

374 MR BAILEY'S REPLY TO AX

body that is the eye — the eye regarded as the con-
dition on which the apprehension of these sensations
depends ; by attending to these, we can understand
how a protensive interval comes to be recognised
between the organ and its objects. By means of the
touch, we have associated the sensations of vision
with tangible bodies in one place, and the appre-
hension of these sensations with a tangible body in
another place. It is, therefore, impossible for the
sight to dissolve these associations, and bring the
sensations out of the one place where they are felt,
into the other place where the condition of their
apprehension resides. The sight is, therefore, com-
pelled to leave the sensations where they are, and
the apprehension of them where it is ; and to recog-
nise the two as sundered from each other — the sen-
sations as separated from the organ, which they
truly are. Thus it is that we would explain the origin
of the perception of distance by the eye; believing
firmly that the sight would never have discerned
this distance without the mediation of the touch.

Eightly to understand the foregoing reasoning —
indeed, to advance a single step in the true philo-
sophy of sensation — we must divest ourselves of the
prejudice instilled into us by a false physiology,
that what we call our organism, or, in plain words,
our body, is necessarily the seat of our sensations.
That all our sensations come to be associated in some
way with this body, and that some of them even
come to be associated with it in place, is undeniable ;

ARTICLE IN BLACKWOOD S MAGAZINE. 375

but so far is it from being true that they are all
essentially implicated or incorporated with it, and
cannot exist at a distance from it, that we have a
direct proof to the contrary in our sensations of
vision ; and until the physiologist can prove (what
has never yet been proven) an a priwi necessity
that our sensations must be where our bodies are,
and an a pri/yri absurdity in the contrary supposi-
tion, he must excuse us for resolutely standing by
the fact as we find it.

This is a view which admits of much discussion,
and we would gladly expatiate upon the subject, did
time and space permit ; but we must content ourselves
with winding up the present observations with the
accompanying diagram, which we think explains our
view beyond the possibility of a mistake.

A
Ba dC

Let A be the original synthesis, or indiscrimina-
tion of vision and its sensations — of light and
colours. Let a be the visual sensations locally asso-
ciated by means of the touch with the tangible
bodies C before vision is in any way associated with
B — before, indeed, we have any knowledge of the
existence of B. Then let a, the general condition
on which the sensations, after a time, are found to
depend, and in virtue of which they are apprehended,
be locally associated with B — the eye discovered by
means of the touch — and we have before us what we
cannot help regarding as a complete rationale of the

376 MR bailey's eeply to an

whole phenomena and mysteries of vision. Now,
the great difference between this view of the subject
and the views of it that have been taken by every
other philosopher, consists in this, that whereas their
explanations invariably implicated the visual sensa-
tions & with B from the very first, thereby rendering
it either impossible for them to be afterwards asso-
ciated with C, or possible only in virtue of some very
extravagant hypothesis — our explanation, on the
contrary, proceeding on a simple observation of the
facts, and never implicating the sensations & with B
at all, but associating them with C a primorcliis,
merely leaving to be associated with B, a, a certain
general condition that must be complied with, in
order that the sensation d may be apprehended, — in
this way, we say, our explanation contrives to steer
clear both of the impossibility and the hypothesis.

We would just add by way of postscript to this
article — which, perhaps, ought itself to have been
only a postscript — that with regard to Mr Bailey's
allegation of our having plagiarised one of his argu-
ments, merely turning the coat of it outside in, we
can assure him that he is labouring under a mistake.
In our former paper, we remarked that we could not
see things to be out of the sight, because we could
not see the .sight itself. Mr Bailey alleges that this
argument is borrowed from him, being a mere re-
versal of his reasoning, that we cannot see things to
be in the sight, because we cannot see both the sight
and the things. That our argument might very

aeticle ix Blackwood's magazine. 377

naturally have been suggested by his, we admit.
But it was not so. We had either overlooked the
passage in his book, or it was clean out of our mind
when we were pondering our own speculations. It
did not suggest our argument, either nearly or re-
motely. Had it done so, we should certainly have
noticed it, and should probably have handled both
Mr Bailey's reasoning and our own to better pur-
pose in consequence. If, notwithstanding this dis-
claimer, he still thinks that appearances are against
us, we cannot mend his faith, but can merely repeat,
that the fact is as we have stated it.

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

How can that which is a purely subjective affection
— in other words, which is dependent upon us as
a mere modification of our sentient nature — acquire,
nevertheless, such a distinct objective reality, as shall
compel us to acknowledge it as an independent crea-
tion, the permanent existence of which is beyond
the control of all that we can either do or think ?
Such is the form to which all the questions of spec-
ulation may be ultimately reduced. And all the
solutions winch have hitherto been propounded as
answers to the problem, may be generalised into
these two : either consciousness is able to transcend,
or go beyond itself; or else the whole pomp, and
pageantry, and magnificence, which we miscall the
external universe, are nothing but our mental phan-
tasmagoria, nothing but states of our poor, finite, sub-
jective selves.

But it has been asked again and again, in refer-
ence to these two solutions, Can a man overstep the

382 A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

limits of himself — of liis own consciousness ? If he
can, then says the querist, the reality of the external
world is indeed guaranteed ; but what an insoluble,
inextricable contradiction is here — that a man should
overstep the limits of the very nature which is his,
just because he cannot overstep it ! And if he can-
not, then says the same querist, then is the external
universe an empty name — a mere unmeaning sound;
and our most inveterate convictions are all dissipated
like dreams.

Astute reasoner ! the dilemma is very just, and is
very formidable ; and upon the one or other of its
horns has been transfixed every adventurer that has
hitherto gone forth on the knight-errantry of specula-
tion. Every man who lays claim to a direct know-
ledge of something different from himself, perishes
impaled on the contradiction involved in the assump-
tion, that consciousness can transcend itself: and
every man who disclaims such knowledge, expires in
the vacuum of idealism, where nothing grows but
the dependent and transitory productions of a delu-
sive and constantly shifting consciousness.

But is there no other way in which the question
can be resolved ? We think that there is. In the
following demonstration, we think that we can vindi-
cate the objective reality of things — (a vindication
which, we would remark by the way, is of no value
whatever, in so far as that objective reality is con-
cerned, but only as being instrumental to the as-
certainment of the laws which regulate the whole

A SPECULATION OX THE SENSES. 383

process of sensation) — we think that we can accom-
plish this, without, on the one hand, forcing conscious-
ness to overstep itself, and on the other hand, without
reducing that reality to the delusive impressions of
an understanding born but to deceive. Whatever the
defects of our proposed demonstration may be, we
flatter ourselves that the dilemma just noticed as so
fatal to every other solution will be utterly power-
less when brought to bear against it : and we con-
ceive, that the point of a third alternative must be
sharpened by the controversialist who would bring
us to the dust. It is a new argument, and will re-
quire a new answer. We moreover pledge ourselves
that, abstruse as the subject is, both the question and
our attempted solution of it shall be presented to the
reader in such a shape as shall compel him to under-
stand them.

Our pioneer shall be a very plain and palpable il-
lustration. Let A be a circle, containing within it
XYZ.

384 A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

X Y and Z lie within the circle ; and the question is,
by what art or artifice — we might almost say by
what sorcery — can they be transplanted out of it,
without at the same time being made to overpass the
limits of the sphere ? There are just four conceiv-
able answers to this question — answers illustrative of
three great schools of philosophy, and of a fourth
which is now fighting for existence.

1. One man will meet the difficulty boldly, and
say — " X Y and Z certainly lie within the circle, but
I believe they lie without it. How this should be,
I know not. I merely state what I conceive to be
the fact. The modus operandi is beyond my com-
prehension." This man's answer is contradictory,
and will never do.

2. Another man will deny the possibility of the
transference — " X Y and Z," he will say, * are gene-
rated within the circle in obedience to its own laws.
They form part and parcel of the sphere ; and every
endeavour to regard them as endowed with an ex-
trinsic existence, must end in the discomfiture of
him who makes the attempt." This man declines
giving any answer to the problem. We ask him
how X Y and Z can be projected beyond the circle
without transgressing its limits; and he answers
that they never are, and never can be so projected.

3. A third man will postulate as the cause of
X Y Z a transcendent X Y Z — that is, a cause lying
external to the sphere ; and by referring the former
to the latter, he will obtain for X Y Z, not certainly

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES. 385

a real externality, which is the thing wanted, but a
quasi-extemality, with which, as the best that is to
be had, he will in all probability rest contented.
"XY and Z," he will say, " are projected, as it were,
out of the circle." This answer leaves the question
as much unsolved as ever. Or,

4. A fourth man (and we beg the reader's atten-
tion to this man's answer, for it forms the fulcrum
or cardinal point on which our whole demonstration
turns) — a fourth man will say, " If the circle could
only be brought within itself, so —

then the difficulty would disappear — the problem
would be completely solved. X Y Z must now of
necessity fall as extrinsic to the circle A ; and this,
too (which is the material part of the solution),
without the limits of the circle A being over-
stepped."

Perhaps this may appear very like quibbling;
perhaps it may be regarded as a very absurd solu-
tion— a very shallow evasion of the difficulty.

2 B

386 A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

Nevertheless, shallow or quibbling as it may seem,
we venture to predict, that when the breath of life
shall have been breathed into the bones of the above
dead illustration, this last answer will be found to
afford a most exact picture and explanation of the
matter we have to deal with. Let our illustration,
then, stand forth as a living process. The large
circle A we shall call our whole sphere of sense, in so
far as it deals with' objective existence; and X Y Z
shall be certain sensations of colour, figure, weight,
hardness, and so forth, comprehended within it. The
question then is, How can these sensations, without
being ejected from the sphere of sense within which
they lie, assume the status and the character of real
independent existences ? How can they be objects,
and yet remain sensations ?

Nothing will be lost on the score of distinctness,
if we retrace, in the living sense, the footprints we
have already trod in explicating the inanimate illus-
tration. Neither will any harm be done, should we
employ very much the same phraseology. We an-
swer, then, that here, too, there are just four con-
ceivable ways in which this question can be met.

1. The man of common sense (so called), who
aspires to be somewhat of a philosopher, will face
the question boldly, and will say, " I feel that colour
and hardness, for instance, lie entirely within the
sphere of sense, and are mere modifications of my
subjective nature. At the same time I feel that
colour^and hardness constitute a real object, which

A SPECULATION OX THE SENSES. 387

exists out of the sphere of sense independently of
me and all my modifications. How this should be I
know not, I merely state the fact as I imagine my-
self to find it. The modus is beyond my compre-
hension." This man belongs to the school of Natural
Eealists. If he merely affirmed or postulated a
miracle in what he uttered, we should have little
to say against him (for the whole process of sen-
sation is indeed miraculous). But he postulates
more than a miracle — he postulates a contradiction,
in the very contemplation of which our reason is
unhinged.

2. Another man will deny that our sensations
ever transcend the sphere of sense, or attain a real
objective existence. " Colour, hardness, figure, and
so forth," he will say, "are generated within the
sphere of sense in obedience to its own original
laws. They form integral parts of the sphere; and
he who endeavours to construe them to his own
mind as embodied in extrinsic independent exist-
ences must for ever be foiled in the attempt." This
man declines giving any answer to the problem. We
ask, How can our sensations be embodied in distinct
permanent realities ? And he replies, That they
never are and never can be so embodied. This man
is an Idealist, or, as we would term him (to distin-
guish him from another species about to be men-
tioned of the same genus), an Acosmical Idealist;
that is, an Idealist who absolutely denies the exist-
ence of an independent material world.

388 A SPECULATION OX THE SENSES.

3. A third man will postulate as the cause of our
sensations of hardness, colour, &c, a transcendent
something, of which he knows nothing except that
he feigns and fables it as lying external to the sphere
of sense : and then, by referring our sensations to
this unknown cause, he will obtain for them, not
certainly the externality desiderated, but a qua si-
externality, which he palms off upon himself and us
as the best that can be supplied. This man is a Cos-
mothetical Idealist ; that is, an Idealist who postu-
lates an external universe as the unknown cause of
certain modifications we are conscious of within our-
selves, and which, according to his view, we never
really get beyond. This species of speculator is the
commonest, but he is the least trustworthy of any ;
and his fallacies are all the more dangerous by reason
of the air of plausibility with which they are invest-
ed. From first to last he represents us as the dupes
of our own perfidious nature. By some inexplicable
process of association he refers certain known effects
to certain unknown causes, and would thus explain
to us how these effects (our sensations) come to
assume, as it were, the character of external objects.
But we know not "as it were." Away with such
shuffling phraseology. There is nothing either of
reference, or of inference, or of quasi-truthfulness in
our apprehension of the material universe. It is
ours with a certainty which laughs to scorn all the
deductions of logic and all the props of hypothesis.
What we wish to know is, how our subjective affec-

A SPECULATIOX OX THE SENSES. 389

tious can be, not as it were, but in God's truth and
in the strict, literal, earnest, and unambiguous sense
of the words, real independent, objective existences.
This is what the cosniothetical idealist never can ex-
plain and never attempts to explain.

4. We now come to the answer which the reader
who has followed us thus far will be prepared to
find us putting forward as by far the most important
of any, and as containing in fact the very kernel of
the solution. A fourth man will say, " If the whole
sphere of sense could only be withdrawn inwards,
could be made to fall somewhere •within itself, then
the whole difficulty would disappear and the prob-
lem would be solved at once. The sensations which
existed previous to this retraction or withdrawal,
would then of necessity fall without the sphere of
sense (see our second diagram), and in doing so they
would necessarily assume a totally different aspect
from that of sensations. They would be real inde-
pendent objects, and (what is the important part of
the demonstration) they would acquire this status
without overstepping by a hair's-breadth the primary
limits of the sphere. Were such phraseology allow-
able, we should say that the sphere has understepped
itself, and in doing so has left its former contents
high and dry, and stamped with all the marks which
can characterise objective existences."

Now the reader will please to remark, that we are
very far from desiring him to accept this last solu-
tion at our bidding. Our method, we trust, is any-

390 A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

thing but dogmatical. We merely say, that if this
can be shown to be the case, then the demonstration
which we are in the course of unfolding will hardly
fail to recommend itself to his acceptance. Whether
or not it is the case can only be established by an
appeal to our experience.

We ask, then, Does experience inform us, or does
she not, that the sphere of sense falls within, and
very considerably within, itself ? But here it will be
asked, What meaning do we attach to the expression,
that sense falls within its own sphere ? These words,
then, we must first of all explain. Everything
which is apprehended as a sensation — such as colour,
figure, hardness, and so forth — falls within the sen-
tient sphere. To be a sensation, and to fall within the
sphere of sense, are identical and convertible terms.
When, therefore, it is asked, Does the sphere of
sense ever fall within itself ? this is equivalent to
asking, Do the senses themselves ever become sen-
sations ? Is that which apprehends sensations ever
itself apprehended as a sensation ? Can the senses
be seized on within the limits of the very circle
which they prescribe ? If they cannot, then it must
be admitted that the sphere of sense never falls
within itself, and consequently that an objective
reality — i. e., a reality extrinsic to that sphere — can
never be predicated or secured for any part of its
contents. But we conceive that only one rational
answer can be returned to this question. Does not
experience teach us, that much if not the whole of

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES. 391

our sentient nature becomes itself in turn a series of
sensations ? Does not the sight — that power which
contains the whole visible space, and embraces dis-
tances which no astronomer can compute — does it
not abjure its high prerogative, and take rank within
the sphere of sense — itself a sensation — when reveal-
ed to us in the solid atom we call the eye ? Here it
is the touch which brings the sight within, and very
far within, the sphere of vision. But somewhat less
directly, and by the aid of the imagination, the sight
operates the same introtraction (pardon the coinage)
upon itself. It ebbs inwards, so to speak, from all
the contents that were given in what may be called
its primary sphere. It represents itself, in its organ,
as a minute visual sensation, out of, and beyond
which, are left lying the great range of all its other
sensations. By imagining the sight as a sensation of
colour, we diminish it to a speck within the sphere
of its own sensations; and as we now regard the
sense as for ever enclosed within this small embra-
sure, all the other sensations which were its, previous
to our discovery of the organ, and which are its still,
are built up into a world of objective existence,
necessarily external to the sight, and altogether out
of its control. All sensations of colour are neces-
sarily out of one another. Surely, then, when the
sight is subsumed under the category of colour — as
it unquestionably is whenever we think of the eye —
surely all other colours must, of necessity, assume a
position external to it ; and what more is wanting to

392 A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

constitute that real objective universe of light and
glory in which our hearts rejoice ?

We can, perhaps, make this matter still plainer by
reverting to our old illustration. Our first exposi-
tion of the question was designed to exhibit a gene-
ral view of the case, through the medium of a dead
symbolical figure. This proved nothing, though we
imagine that it illustrated much. Our second expo-
sition exhibited the illustration in its application to
the living sphere of sensation in general; and this
proved little. But we conceive that therein was
foreshadowed a certain procedure, which, if it can be
shown from experience to be the actual procedure of
sensation in detail, will prove all that we are desirous
of establishing. We now, then, descend to a more
systematic exposition of the process which (so far
as our experience goes, and we beg to refer the reader
to his own) seems to be involved in the operation of
seeing. We dwell chiefly upon the sense of sight,
because it is mainly through its ministrations that a
real objective universe is given to us. Let the circle
A be the whole circuit of vision. We may begin by
calling it the eye, the retina, or what we will. Let
it be provided with the ordinary complement of sen-
sations— the colours X Y Z. Now, we admit that
these sensations cannot be extruded beyond the peri-
phery of vision ; and yet we maintain that, unless
they be made to fall on the outside of that periphery,
they cannot become real objects. How is this diffi-
culty— this contradiction — to be overcome ? Nature

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES. 393

overcomes it, by a contrivance as simple as it is
beautiful. In the operation of seeing, admitting the
canvas or background of our picture to be a retina,
or what we will, with a multiplicity of colours de-
picted upon it, we maintain that we cannot stop here,
and that we never do stop here. We invariably go
on (such is the inevitable law of our nature) to com-
plete the picture — that is to say, we fill in our own
eye as a colour within the very picture which our
eye contains — we fill it in as a sensation within the
other sensations which occupy the rest of the field ;
and in doing so, we of necessity, by the same law,
turn these sensations out of the eye ; and they thus,
by the same necessity, assume the rank of indepen-
dent objective existences. "We describe the circum-
ference infinitely within the circumference; and
hence all that lies on the outside of the intaken
circle comes before us stamped with the impress of
real objective truth. We fill in the eye greatly
within the sphere of sight (or within the eye itself,
if we insist on calling the primary sphere by this
name), and the eye thus filled in is the only eye we
know anything at all about, either from the experi-
ence of sight or of touch. Hoiv this operation is
accomplished, is a subject of but secondary moment ;
whether it be brought about by the touch, by the
eye itself, or by the imagination, is a question which
might admit of much discussion; but it is one of
very subordinate interest. The fact is the main
thing — the fact that the operation is accomplished in

394 A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

one way or another — the fact that the sense comes
before itself (if not directly, yet virtually) as one of
its own sensations — that is the principal point to be
attended to ; and we apprehend that this fact is now
placed beyond the reach of controversy.

To put the case in another light. The following
considerations may serve to remove certain untoward
difficulties in metaphysics and optics, which beset
the path, not only of the uninitiated, but even of the
professors of the sciences.

We are assured by optical metaphysicians, or meta-
physical opticians, that, in the operations of vision,
we never get beyond the eye itself, or the represen-
tations that are depicted therein. We see nothing,
they tell us, but what is delineated within the eye.
Now, the way in which a plain man should meet
this statement is this — he should ask the metaphy-
sician what eye he refers to. Do you allude, sir, to
an eye which belongs to my visible body, and forms
a small part of the same ; or do you allude to an eye
which does not belong to my visible body, and which
constitutes no portion thereof ? If the metaphysician
should say that he refers to an eye of the latter
description, then the plain man's answer should be —
that he has no experience of any such eye — that he
cannot conceive it — that he knows nothing at all
about it — and that the only eye which he ever thinks
or speaks of, is the eye appertaining to, and situated
within, the phenomenon which he calls his visible
body. Is this, then, the eye which the metaphysi-

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES. 395

cian refers to, and which he tells us we never get
beyond ? If it be — why, then, the very admission
that this eye is a part of the visible body (and what
else can we conceive the eye to be ?) proves that we
must get beyond it. Even supposing that the whole
operation were transacted within the eye, and that
the visible body were nowhere but within the eye,
still the eye which we invariably and inevitably
fill in as belonging to the visible body (and no
other eye is ever thought of or spoken of by us), —
this eye, we say, must necessarily exclude the visible
body, and all other visible things, from its sphere.
Or, can the eye (always conceived of as a visible
thing among other visible things) again contain the
very phenomenon (i. e., the visible body) within
which it is itself contained ? Surely no one will
maintain a position of such unparalleled absurdity
as that.

The science of optics, in so far as it maintains, ac-
cording to certain physiological principles, that in the
operation of seeing we never get beyond the repre-
sentations within the eye, is founded on the assump-
tion that the visible body has no visible eye belong-
ing to it. Whereas we maintain that the only eye
that we have — the only eye we can form any concep-
tion of — is the visible eye that belongs to the visible
body, as a part does to a whole ; whether this eye be
originally revealed to us by the touch, by the sight,
by the reason, or by the imagination. We maintain
that to affirm we never get beyond this eye in the

396 A SPECULATION OX THE SENSES.

exercise of vision, is equivalent to asserting that a
part is larger than the whole, of which it is only a
part — is equivalent to asserting that Y, which is con-
tained between X and Z, is nevertheless of larger com-
pass than X and Z, and comprehends them both.
The fallacy we conceive to be this, that the visible
body can be contained within the eye, without the eye
of the visible body also being contained therein. But
this is a procedure which no law either of thought
or imagination will tolerate. If we turn the visible
body, and all visible things, into the eye, we must turn
the eye of the visible body also into the eye ; a process
which, of course, again turns the visible body, and all
visible things, out of the eye. And thus the pro-
cedure eternally defeats itself. Thus the very law
which appears to annihilate, or render impossible,
the objective existence of visible things, as creations
independent of the eye — this very law, when carried
into effect with a thoroughgoing consistency, vindi-
cates and establishes that objective existence, with
a logical force, an iron necessity, which no physio-
logical paradox can countervail.

We have now probably said enough to convince
the attentive reader that the sense of sight, when
brought under its own notice as a sensation, either
directly, or through the ministry of the touch, or of
the imagination (as it is when revealed to us in its
organ), falls very far, falls almost infinitely within
its own sphere. Sight, revealing itself as a sense,
spreads over a span commensurate with the diameter

A SPECULATION OX THE SENSES. 397

of the whole visible space ; sight, revealing itself as
a sensation, dwindles to a speck of almost unappre-
ciable insignificance when compared with the other
phenomena which fall within the visual ken. This
speck is the organ, and the organ is the sentient
circumference drawn inwards, far within itself, ac-
cording to a law which (however unconscious we
may be of its operation) presides over every act and
exercise of vision ; a law which, while it contracts the
sentient sphere, throws, at the same time, into neces-
sary objectivity every phenomenon that falls external
to the diminished circle. This is the law, in virtue
of which, subjective visual sensations are real visible
objects. The moment the sight becomes one of its
own sensations, it is restricted in a peculiar manner
to that particular sensation. It now falls, as we
have said, within its own sphere. Now, nothing
more was wanting to make the other visual sensa-
tions real independent existences, for, qua sensations,
they are all originally independent of each other, and
the sense itself being now a sensation, they must now
also be independent of it.

We now pass on to the consideration of the sense
of touch.

Here precisely the same process is gone through
which was observed to take place in the case of vision.
The same law manifests itself here, and the same in-
evitable consequence follows, namely, that sensations
are things, that subjective affections are objective
realities. The sensation of hardness (softness, be it

398 A SPECULATION OX THE SENSES.

observed, is only an inferior degree of hardness, and
therefore the latter word is the proper generic term
to be employed) — the sensation of hardness forms
the contents of this sense. Hardness, we will say, is
originally a purely subjective affection. The ques-
tion then is, How can this affection, without being
thrust forth into a fictitious, transcendent, and incom-
prehensible universe, assume, nevertheless, a distinct,
objective reality, and be (not as it were, but in lan-
guage of the most unequivocating truth) a permanent
existence altogether independent of the sense ? We
answer, that this can take place only provided the
sense of touch can be brought under our notice as
itself hard. If this can be shown to take place, then
(as all sensations which are presented to us in space
necessarily exclude one another, are reciprocally <mt
of each other), all other instances of hardness must
of necessity fall as extrinsic to that particular hard-
ness which the sense reveals to us as its own ; and,
consequently, all these other instances of hardness
will start into being as things endowed with a per-
manent and independent substance.

Now, what is the verdict of experience on the
subject. The direct and unequivocal verdict of
experience is, that the touch reveals itself to us as
one of its own sensations. In the finger-points more
particularly, and generally all over the surface of the
body, the touch manifests itself not only as that which
apprehends hardness, but as that which is itself hard.
The sense of touch vested in one of its own sensa-

A SPECULATION OX THE SENSES. 399

tions (our tangible bodies, namely) is the sense of
touch brought within its own sphere. It comes
before itself as one sensation of hardness. Conse-
quently all its other sensations of hardness are neces-
sarily excluded from this particular hardness; and
falling beyond it, they are, by the same consequence,
built up into a world of objective reality, of perma-
nent substance, altogether independent of the sense,
self-betrayed as a sensation of hardness.

But here, it may be asked, if the senses are thus
reduced to the rank of sensations, if they come under
our observation as themselves sensations, must we not
regard them but as parts of the subjective sphere ;
and though the other portions of the sphere may be
extrinsic to these sensations, still, must not the con-
tents of the sphere, taken as a whole, be considered
as entirely subjective, i.e, as merely ours, and conse-
quently must not real objective existence be still as
far beyond our grasp as ever ? We answer, No ; by
no means. Such a query implies a total oversight
of all that experience proves to be the fact with
regard to this matter. It implies that the senses
have not been reduced to the rank of sensations, that
they have not been brought under our cognisance as
themselves sensations, and that they have yet to be
brought there. It implies that vision has not been
revealed to us as a sensation of colour in the phe-
nomenon, the eye; and that touch has not been
revealed to us as a sensation of hardness in the phe-
nomenon, the finger. It implies, in short, that it is

400 A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

not the sense itself which has been revealed to us
in the one case as coloured, and in the other case
as hard, but that it is something else which ha:
been thus revealed to us. But it may still
asked, How do we know that we are not deceivin
ourselves ? How can it be proved that it is the
senses, and not something else, which have come
before us under the guise of certain sensations ?
That these sensations are the senses themselves
and nothing but the senses, may be proved in the
following manner : —

We bring the matter to the test of actual experi-
ment. We make certain experiments seriatim upon
each of the items that lie within the sentient sphere,
and we note the effect which each experiment has
upon that portion of the contents which is not med-
dled with. In the exercise of vision, for example,
we remove a book, and no change is produced in our
perception of a house ; a cloud disappears, yet our
apprehension of the sea and the mountains, and all
other visible things, is the same as ever. We con-
tinue our experiments until our test happens to be
applied to one particular phenomenon which lies,
if not directly, yet virtually, within the sphere of
vision. We remove or veil this small visual pheno-
menon, and a totally different effect is produced from
those that took place when any of the other visual
phenomena were removed or veiled. The whole
landscape is obliterated. We restore this phenome-
non, the whole landscape reappears ; we adjust this

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES. 401

phenomenon differently, the whole landscape becomes
differently adjusted. From these experiments we
find that this phenomenon is by no means an ordi-
nary sensation, but that it differs from all other sen-
sations in this, that it is the sense itself appearing
in the form of a sensation. These experiments prove
that it is the sense itself, and nothing else, which
reveals itself to us in the particular phenomenon, the
eye. If experience informed us that the particular
adjustment of some other visual phenomenon (a book,
for instance) were essential to our apprehension of all
the other phenomena, we should, in the same way,
be compelled to regard this book as our sense of
sight manifested in one of its own sensations. The
book would be to us what the eye now is ; it would
be our bodily organ : and no a priori reason can be
shown why this might not have been the case. All
that we can say is, that such is not the finding of
experience. Experience points out the eye, and the
eye alone, as the visual sensation essential to our
apprehension of all our other sensations of vision,
and we come at last to regard this sensation as the
sense itself. Inveterate association leads us to regard
the eye not merely as the organ, but actually as the
sense of vision. We find from experience how much
depends upon its possession, and we lay claim to it
as a part of ourselves with an emphasis that will not
be gainsaid.

An interesting enough subject of speculation would
be, an inquiry into the gradual steps by which each
2 C

402 A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

man is led to appropriate his own body. No man's
body is given him absolutely, indefeasibly, and at
once, ex dono Dei. It is no unearned hereditary pat-
rimony. It is held by no a priori title on the part
of the possessor. The credentials by which its tenure
is secured to him are purely of an a posteriori char-
acter; and a certain course of experience must be
gone through before the body can become his. The
man acquires it, as he does originally all other pro-
perty, in a certain formal and legalised manner.
Originally, and in the strict legal as well as meta-
physical idea of them, all bodies, living as well as
dead, human no less than brute, are mere waifs, the
property of the first finder. But the law, founding
on sound metaphysical principles, very properly
makes a distinction here between two kinds of find-
ing. To entitle a person to claim a human body as
his own, it is not enough that he should find it in
the same way in which he finds his other sensations,
namely, as impressions which interfere not with the
manifestations of each other. This is not enough,
even though, in the case supposed, the person should
be the first finder. A subsequent finder would have
the preference if able to show that the particular
sensations manifested as this human body were
essential to his apprehension of all his other sen-
sations whatsoever. It is this latter species of find-
ing— the finding, namely, of certain sensations as the
essential condition on which the apprehension of all
other sensations depends — it is this finding alone

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES. 403

which gives each man a paramount and indisputable
title to that " treasure trove " which he calls his own
body. Now, it is only after going through a con-
siderable course of experience and experiment, that
we can ascertain what the particular sensations are
upon which all our other sensations are dependent.
And therefore were we not right in saying that a
man's body is not given to him directly and at once,
but that he takes a certain time, and must go through
a certain process, to acquire it ?

The conclusion which we would deduce from the
whole of the foregoing remarks is, that the great law of
living1 sensation, the rationale of sensation as a living
process, is this, that the senses are not merely presenta-
tive, i.e., they not only bring sensations before us, but
that they are self-presentative, i.e., they, moreover,
bring themselves before us as sensations. But for
this law we should never get beyond our mere subjec-
tive modifications ; but, in virtue of it, we necessarily
get beyond them ; for the results of the law are — 1st,
that we, the subject, restrict ourselves to, or identify
ourselves with, the senses, not as displayed in their

1 We say living, because eveiy attempt hitherto made to explain
sensation has been founded on certain appearances manifested in
the dead subject. By inspecting a dead carcass we shall never dis-
cover the principle of life ; by inspecting a dead eye or a camera
obscura, we shall never discover the principle of vision. Yet,
though there is no seeing in a dead eye, or in a camera obscura,
optics deal exclusively with such inanimate materials ; and hence
the student who studies them will do well to remember, that optics
are the science of vision, with the fact of vision left entirely out of
the consideration.

404 A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

primary sphere (the large circle A), but as falling
within their own ken as sensations, in their secondary
sphere (the small circle A). This smaller sphere is
our own bodily frame, and does not each individual
look upon himself as vested in his own bodily frame ?
And, 2dly, it is a necessary consequence of this in-
vestment or restriction, that every sensation which
lies beyond the sphere of the senses, viewed as sen-
sations (i.e., which lies beyond the body), must be,
in the most unequivocal sense of the words, a real
independent object. If the reader wants a name to
characterise this system, he may call it the system
of Absolute 01* Thoroughgoing presentationism .

EEID AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF
COMMON SENSE

EEID AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF
COMMON SENSE.1

Although Dr Reid does not stand in the very high-
est rank of philosophers, this incomparable edition
of his works goes far to redress his deficiencies, and
to render his writings, taken in connection with the
editorial commentaries, a most engaging and profit-
able study. It is probable that the book derives
much of its excellence from the very imperfections
of the textual author. Had Eeid been a more learned
man he might have failed to elicit the unparalleled
erudition of his editor; had he been a clearer and
closer thinker, Sir William Hamilton's vigorous logic
and speculative acuteness would probably have found
a narrower field for their display. On the whole, we
cannot wish that Eeid had been either more erudite

1 'The Works of Thomas Eeid, D.D.' Edited by Sir William
Hamilton, Bart. , Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh. With Copious Notes and Supplementary
Dissertations by the Editor. Edinburgh : Maclachlan, Stewart,
& Co. 1846.

408 REID AND THE

or more perspicacious, so pointed and felicitous is
the style in which his errors are corrected, his
thoughts reduced to greater precision, his ambigui-
ties pointed out and cleared up, and his whole
system set in its most advantageous light, by his
admiring though by no means idolatrous editor.

Besides being a model of editorship, this single
volume is, in so far as philosophy and the history of
philosophical opinion are concerned, of itself a liter-
ature. We must add, however, that Sir William
Hamilton's dissertations, though abundant, are not
yet completed. Yet, in spite of this drawback, the
work is one which ought to wipe away effectually
from our country the reproach of imperfect learning
and shallow speculation; for in depth of thought,
and extent and accuracy of knowledge, the editor's
own contributions are of themselves sufficient to
bring up our national philosophy (which had fallen
somewhat into arrear) to a level with that of the
most scientific countries in Europe.

In the remarks that are to follow, we shall confine
ourselves to a critique of the philosophy of Dr Eeid,
and of its collateral topics. Sir William Hamilton's
dissertations are too elaborate and important to be
discussed, unless in an article, or series of articles,
devoted exclusively to themselves. Should we ap-
pear in aught to press the philosophy of common
sense too hard, we conceive that our strictures are,
to a considerable extent, borne out by the admissions
of Sir William Hamilton himself, in regard to the

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 409

tenets of the founder of the school. And should
some of our shafts glance off against the editor's own
opinions, he has only himself to blame for it. If we
see a fatal flaw in the constitution of all, and conse-
quently of his, psychology, it was his writings that
first opened our eyes to it. So lucidly has he
explained certain philosophical doctrines, that they
cannot stop at the point to which he has carried
them. They must be rolled forward into a new
development which perhaps may be at variance with
the old one, where he tarries. But his powerful arm
first set the stone in motion, and he must be content
to let it travel whithersoever it may. He has taught
those who study him to think, and he must stand the
consequences, whether they think in unison with him-
self or not. We conceive, however, that even those
who differ from him most, would readily own, that to
his instructive disquisitions they were indebted for
at least one half of all that they know of philosophy.

In entering on an examination of the system of Dr
Eeid, we must ask first of all, what is the great pro-
blem about which philosophers in all ages have busied
themselves most, and which consequently must have
engaged, and did engage, a large share of the atten-
tion of the champion of Common Sense ? We must
also state the fact which gives rise to the problem of
philosophy.

The perception of a material universe, as it is the
most prominent fact of cognition, so has it given rise
to the problem which has been most agitated by

410 KEID AND THE

philosophers. This question does not relate to the
existence of the fact. The existence of the perception
of matter is admitted on all hands. It refers to the
nature, or origin, or constitution of the fact. Is the
perception of matter simple and indivisible, or is it
composite and divisible ? Is it the ultimate, or is it
only the penultimate, datum of cognition ? Is it a
relation constituted by the concurrence of a mental
or subjective, and a material or objective element;
or do we impose upon ourselves in regarding it as
such ? Is it a state or modification of the human
mind ? Is it an effect that can be distinguished from
its cause ? Is it an event consequent on the pre-
sence of real antecedent objects ? These interroga-
tions are somewhat varied in their form, but each of
them embodies the whole point at issue, each of them
contains the cardinal question of philosophy. The
perception of matter is the admitted fact. The char-
acter of this fact, that is the point which speculation
undertakes to canvass, and endeavours to decipher.

Another form in which the question may be put is
this : We all believe in the existence of matter, but
what kind of matter do we believe in the existence
of ? matter per se, or matter cum perceptione ? If
the former, this implies that the given fact (the per-
ception of matter) is compound and submits to an-
alysis ; if the latter, this implies that it is simple and
defies partition.

Opposite answers to this question are returned by
psychology and metaphysic. In the estimation of

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 411

metaphysic, the perception of matter is the absolutely
elementary in cognition, the ne plus ultra of thought.
Eeason cannot get beyond, or behind it. It has no
pedigree. It admits of no analysis. It is not a re-
lation constituted by the coalescence of an objective
and a subjective element. It is not a state or modi-
fication of the human mind. It is not an effect
which can be distinguished from its cause. It is
not brought about by the presence of antecedent
realities. It is positively the First, with no fore-
runner. The perception -of -matter is one mental
word, of which the verbal words are mere syllables.
We impose upon ourselves, and we also falsify the
fact, if we take any other view of it than this. Thus
speaks metaphysic, though perhaps not always with
an unfaltering voice.

Psychology, or the science of the human mind,
teaches a very different doctrine. According to this
science, the perception of matter is a secondary and
composite truth. It admits of being analysed into a
subjective and an objective element, a mental modi-
fication called perception on the one hand, and mat-
ter per se on the other. It is an effect induced by
real objects. It is not the first datum of intelligence.
It has matter itself for its antecedent. Such, in very
general terms, is the explanation of the perception of
matter which psychology proposes.

Psychology and metaphysic are thus radically op-
posed to each other in their solutions of the highest
problem of speculation. Stated concisely, the differ-

•412 REID AND THE

ence between them is this : — psychology regards the
perception of matter as susceptible of analytic treat-
ment, and travels, or endeavours to travel, beyond
the given fact ; metaphysic stops short in the given
fact, and there makes a stand, declaring it to be an
indissoluble unity. Psychology holds her analysis
to be an analysis of things. Metaphysic holds the
psychological analysis to be an analysis of sounds,
and nothing more. These observations exhibit, in
their loftiest generalisation, the two counter doctrines
on the subject of perception. We now propose to
follow them into their details, for the purpose both
of eliciting the truth and of arriving at a correct
judgment in regard to the reformation which Dr Eeid
is supposed to have effected in this department of
philosophy.

The psychological or analytic doctrine is the first
which we shall discuss, on account of its connection
with the investigations of Dr Eeid, in regard to whom
we may state, beforehand, our conclusion and its
grounds, which are these : — that Eeid broke down in
his philosophy, both polemical and positive, because
he assumed the psychological and not the metaphy-
sical doctrine of perception as the basis of his argu-
ments. He did not regard the perception of matter
as absolutely primary and simple; but in common
with all psychologists, he conceived that it admitted
of being resolved into a mental condition and a
material reality; and the consequence was, that he
fell into the very errors which it was the professed

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 413

business of his life to denounce and exterminate.
How this catastrophe came about we shall endeavour
shortly to explain.

Eeid's leading design was to overthrow scepticism
and idealism. In furtherance of this intention, he
proposed to himself the accomplishment of two sub-
sidiary ends, — the refutation of what is called the
ideal or representative theory of perception, and the
substitution of a doctrine of intuitive perception in
its room. He takes, and he usually gets, credit for
having accomplished both of these objects. But if
it be true that the representative theory is but the
inevitable development of the doctrine which treats
the perception of matter analytically, and if it be
true that Eeid adopts this latter doctrine, it is ob-
vious that his claims cannot be admitted without
a very considerable deduction. That both of these
things are true may be established, we think, beyond
the possibility of a doubt.

In the first place, then, we have to show that the
theory of a representative perception (which Eeid is
supposed to have overthrown) is identical with the
doctrine which treats the perception of matter ana-
lytically ; and, in the second, we have to show that
Eeid himself followed the analytic or psychological
procedure in his treatment of this fact, and founded
upon the analysis his own doctrine of perception.

First, The representative theory is that doctrine
/of perception which teaches that, in our intercourse
with the external universe, we are not immediately

414 REID AND THE

cognisant of real objects themselves, but only of cer-
tain mental transcripts or images of them, which, in
the language of the different philosophical schools,
were termed ideas, representations, phantasms, or
species. According to this doctrine we are cognisant
of real things, not in and through themselves, but in
and through these species or representations. The
representations are the immediate or proximate, the
real things are the mediate or remote, objects of the
mind. The existence of the former is a matter of
knowledge, the existence of the latter is merely a
matter of belief.

To understand this theory, we must construe its
nomenclature into the language of the present day.
What, then, is the modern synonym for the " ideas,"
" representations," " phantasms," and " species," which
the theory in question declares to be vicarious of
real objects ? There cannot be a doubt that the word
perception is that synonym. So that the representa-
tive theory, when fairly interpreted, amounts simply
to this, that the mind is immediately cognisant, not
of real objects themselves, but only of its own percep-
tions of real objects. To accuse the representationist
of maintaining a doctrine more repugnant to com-
mon sense than this, or in any way different from it,
would be both erroneous and unjust. The golden
rule of philosophical criticism is to give every sys-
tem the benefit of the most favourable interpretation
which it admits of.

This, then, is the true version of representationism,

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 415

namely, that our perceptions of material things, and
not material things per se, are the proximate objects
of our consciousness when we hold intercourse with
the external universe.

Now, this is a doctrine which inevitably emerges
the instant that the analysis of the perception of
matter is set on foot and admitted. When a philo-
sopher divides, or imagines that he divides, the per-
ception of matter into two things, perception and
matter, holding the former to be a state of his own
mind, and the latter to be no such state ; he does, in
that analysis, and without saying one other word,
avow himself to be a thoroughgoing representationist.
For his analysis declares that, in perception, the mind
has an immediate or proximate, and a mediate or
remote object. Its perception of matter is the proxi-
mate object, the object of its consciousness ; matter
itself, the material existence, is the remote object —
the object of its belief. But such a doctrine is re-
presentationism, in the strictest sense of the word.
It is the very essence and definition of the represen-
tative theory to recognise, in perception, a remote as
well as a proximate object of the mind. Every sys-
tem which does this is necessarily a representative
system. The doctrine which treats the perception of
matter analytically does this ; therefore the analytic
or psychological doctrine is identical with the repre-
sentative theory. Both hold that the perceptive pro-
cess involves two objects, an immediate and a me-
diate ; and nothing more is required to establish their

416 EEID AND THE

perfect identity. The analysis of the fact which we
call the perception of matter, is unquestionably the
groundwork and pervading principle of the theory of
a representative perception, whatever form of expres-
sion this scheme may at any time have assumed.

Secondly, Did Dr Eeid go to work analytically in
his treatment of the perception of matter ? Un-
doubtedly he did. He followed the ordinary psycho-
logical practice. He regarded the datum as divisible
into perception and matter. The perception he held
to be an act, if not a modification of our minds ; the
matter he regarded as something which existed out
of the mind and irrespective of all perception. Eight
or wrong, he resolved, or conceived that he had re-
solved, the perception of matter into its constituent
elements, these being a mental operation on the one
hand and a material existence on the other. In
short, however ambiguous many of Dr Eeid's prin-
ciples may be, there can be no doubt that he founded
his doctrine of perception on an analysis of the given
fact with which he had to deal. He says, indeed,
but little about this analysis, so completely does lie
take it for granted. He accepted, as a thing of
course, the notorious distinction between the per-
ception of matter and matter itself; and, in doing
so, he merely followed the example of all preceding
psychologists.

These two points being established — -first, that the
theory of representationism necessarily arises out of
an analysis of the perception of matter; and, secondly,

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 417

that Eeid analysed or accepted the analysis of this
fact — it follows as a necessary consequence that Eeid,
so far from having overthrown the representative
theory, was himself a representationist. His analysis
gave him more than he bargained for. He wished
to obtain only one, that is, only a proximate
object in perception; but his analysis necessarily
gave him two: it gave him a remote as well as a
proximate object. The mental mode or operation
which he calls the perception of matter, and which
he distinguishes from matter itself, this, in his phi-
losophy, is the proximate object of consciousness,
and is precisely equivalent to the species, phantasms,
and representations of the older psychology ; the real
existence, matter itself, which he distinguishes from
the perception of it, this is the remote object of the
mind, and is precisely equivalent to the mediate or
represented object of the older psychology. He and
the representationists, moreover, agree in holding
that the latter is the object of belief rather than
of knowledge.

The merits of Dr Eeid, then, as a reformer of
philosophy, amount in our opinion to this : he was
among the first 1 to say and to write that the repre-

1 Among the first. He was not the first. Berkeley had pre-
ceded him in denouncing most unequivocally the whole theory of
representationism. The reason why Berkeley does not get the
credit of this is, because his performance is even more explicit and
cogent than his promise. He made no phrase about refuting the
theory, he simply refuted it. Reid said the business, but Berke-
ley did it. The two greatest and most unaccountable blunders in

2 D

418 REID AND THE

sentative theory of perception was false and errone-
ous, and was the fountainhead of scepticism and
idealism. But this admission of his merits must be
accompanied by the qualification that he adopted, as
the basis of his philosophy, a principle which ren-
dered nugatory all his protestations. It is of no use
to disclaim a conclusion if we accept the premises
which inevitably lead to it. Dr Eeid disclaimed the
representative theory, but he embraced its premises,
and thus he virtually ratified the conclusions of the
very system which he clamorously denounced. In
his language he is opposed to representationism, but
in his doctrine he lends it the strongest support by
accepting as the foundation of his philosophy an
analysis of the perception of matter.

In regard to the seco?id end which Dr Eeid is sup-
posed to have overtaken — the establishment of a
doctrine of intuitive as opposed to a doctrine of
representative perception — it is unnecessary to say
much. If we have proved him to be a representa-
tionist, he cannot be held to be an intuitionist. In-
deed, a doctrine of intuitive perception is a sheer
impossibility upon his principles. A doctrine of
intuition implies that the mind in perceiving matter
has only one, namely, a proximate object. But the

the whole history of philosophy are probably Reid's allegations that
Berkeley was a representationist, and that he was an idealist ; un
derstanding by the word idealist, one who denies the existence of a
real external universe. From every page of his writings, it is obvi-
ous that Berkeley was neither the one of these nor the other, even
in the remotest degree.

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 419

analysis of the perception of matter always yields, as
its result, a remote as well as a proximate object.
The proximate object is the perception, the remote
object is the reality. And thus the analysis of the
given fact necessarily renders abortive every endea-
vour to construct a doctrine of intuitive perception.
The attempt must end in representationism. The
only basis for a doctrine of intuitive perception which
will never give way, is a resolute forbearance from
all analysis of the fact. Do not tamper with it, and
you are safe.

Such is the judgment which we are reluctantly
compelled to pronounce on the philosophy of Dr
Keid in reference to its two cardinal claims,^the re-
futation of the ideal theory, and the establishment of .
a truer doctrine — a doctrine of intuitive perception.
In neither of these undertakings do we think that he
has succeeded, and we have exhibited the grounds of
our opinion. We do not blame him for this : he
simply missed his way at the outset. Eepresenta-
tionism could not possibly be avoided, neither could
intuitionism be possibly fallen in with, on the ana-
lytic road which he took.

But we have not yet done with the consideration
of the psychological or analytic doctrine of percep-
tion. We proceed to examine the entanglements in
which reason gets involved when she accepts the
perception of matter not in its natural and indissol-
uble unity, but as analysed by philosophers into a
mental and a material factor. We have still an eye

420 REID AND THE

to Dr Reid. He came to the rescue of reason, how
did it fare with him in the struggle ?

The analysis so often referred to affords a starting-
point, as has been shown, to representationism : it is
also the tap-root of scepticism and idealism. These
four things hang together in an inevitable sequence.
Scepticism and idealism dog representationism, and
representationism dogs the analysis of the perception
of matter, just as obstinately as substance is dogged
by shadow. More explicitly stated, the order in
which they move is this: The analysis divides the
perception of matter into perception and matter —
two separate things. Upon this, representationism
declares, that the perception is the proximate, and
that the matter is the remote, object of the mind.
Then scepticism declares, that the existence of the
matter which has been separated from the perception
is problematical, because it is not the direct object
of consciousness, and is consequently hypothetical.
And, last of all, idealism takes up the ball and de-
clares, that this hypothetical matter is not only pro-
blematical, but that it is non-existent. These are the
perplexities which rise up to embarrass reason when-
ever she is weak enough to accept from philosophers
their analysis of the perception of matter. They are
only the just punishment of her infatuated facility.
But what has Eeid done to extricate reason from her
embarrassments ?

We must remember that Eeid commenced with
analysis, and that consequently he embraced repre-

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 421

sentationism, in its spirit, if not positively in its
letter. But how did he evade the fangs of scepticism
and idealism, to say nothing of destroying, these
sleuth-hounds which on this road were sure to be
down upon his track the moment they got wind of
him ? We put the question in a less figurative form :
When scepticism and idealism doubted or denied
the independent existence of matter, how did Eeid
vindicate it? He faced about and appealed boldly
to our instinctive and irresistible belief in its inde-
pendent existence.

The crisis of the strife centres in this appeal. In
itself, the appeal is perfectly competent and legiti-
mate. But it may be met, on the part of the sceptic
and idealist, by two modes of tactic. The one tactic
is weak, and gives an easy triumph to Dr Eeid : the
other is more formidable, and, in our opinion, lays
him prostrate.

The first Sceptical Tactic. — In answer to Dr Eeid's
appeal, the sceptic or idealist may say, " Doubtless
we have a belief in the independent existence of
matter ; but this belief is not to be trusted. It is an
insufficient guarantee for that which it avouches. It
does not follow that a thing is true because we in-
stinctively believe it to be true. It does not follow
that matter exists because we cannot but believe it
to exist. You must prove its existence by a better
argument than mere belief." This mode of meeting
the appeal we hold to be pure trifling. We join issue
with Dr Eeid in maintaining that our nature is not

422 EEID AND THE

rooted in delusion, and that the primitive convictions
of common sense must be accepted as infallible. If
the sceptic admits that we have a natural belief in
the independent existence of matter, there is an end
to him : Dr Eeid's victory is secure. This first tactic
is a feeble and mistaken manoeuvre.

Tlie second Sceptical Tactic. — This position is not
so easily turned. The stronghold of the sceptic and
idealist is this: they deny the primitive belief to
which Dr Eeid appeals to be the fact. It is not true,
they say, that any man believes in the independent
existence of matter. And this is perfectly obvious
the moment that it is explained. Matter in its inde-
pendent existence, matter per se, is matter disengaged
in thought from all perception of it present or remem-
bered. Now, does any man believe in the existence
of such matter ? Unquestionably not. No man by
any possibility can. What the matter is which man
really believes in shall be explained when we come
to speak of the metaphysical solution of the problem,
perhaps sooner. Meanwhile we remark that Dr
Eeid's appeal to the conviction of common sense in
favour of the existence of matter per se, is rebutted,
and in our opinion triumphantly, by the denial on
the part of scepticism and idealism that any such
belief exists. Scepticism and idealism not only deny
the independent existence of matter, but they deny
that any man believes in the independent existence
of matter. And in this denial they are most indubit-
ably right. For observe what such a belief requires

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 423

as its condition. A man must disengage in thought,
a tree, for instance, from the thought of all perception
of it, and then he must believe in its existence thus
disengaged. If he has not disengaged, in his mind,
the tree from its perception (from its present percep-
tion, if the tree be before him ; from its remembered
perception, if it be not before him), he cannot believe
in the existence of the tree disengaged from its per-
ception ; for the tree is not disengaged from its per-
ception. But unless he believes in the existence of
the tree disengaged from its perception, he does not
believe in the independent existence of the tree, in
the existence of the tree per se. Now, can the mind
by any effort effect this disengagement ? The thing-
is an absolute impossibility. The condition on which
the belief hinges cannot be purified, and consequently
the belief itself cannot be entertained.

People have, then, no belief in the independent
existence of matter; that is, in the existence of
matter entirely denuded of perception. This point
being proved, what becomes of Dr Eeid's appeal to
this belief in support of matter's independent exist-
ence ? It has not only no force, it has no meaning.
This second tactic is invincible. Scepticism and
idealism are perfectly in the right when they refuse
to accept as the guarantee of independent matter
a belief which itself has no manner of existence.
How can they be vanquished by an appeal to a
nonentity ?

A question may here be raised. If the belief in

424 EEID AND THE

question be not the fact, what has hitherto prevented
scepticism from putting a final extinguisher on Eeid's
appeal by proving that no such belief exists ? A very
sufficient reason has prevented scepticism from doing
this, from explicitly extinguishing the appeal. There
is a division of labour in speculation as well as in
other pursuits. It is the sceptic's business simply to
deny the existence of the belief : it is no part of his
business to exhibit the grounds of his denial. We
have explained these grounds ; but were the sceptic
to do this, he would be travelling out of his voca-
tion. Observe how the case stands. The reason why
matter per se is not and cannot be believed in, is
because it is impossible for thought to disengage
matter from perception, and consequently it is im-
possible for thought to believe in the disengaged
existence of matter. The matter to be believed in
is not disengaged from the perception, consequently
it cannot be believed to be disengaged from the per-
ception. But unless it be believed to be disengaged
from the perception, it cannot be believed to exist
per se. In short, as we have already said, the im-
possibility of complying with the condition of the
belief is the ground on which the sceptic denies the
existence of the belief. But the sceptic is himself
debarred from producing these grounds. Why ? Be-
cause their exhibition would be tantamount to a
rejection of the principle which he has accepted at
the hands of the orthodox and dogmatic psychologist.
That principle is the analysis so often spoken of —

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 425

the separation, namely, of the perception of matter
into perception and matter per se. The sceptic
accepts this analysis. His business is simply to
accept, not to discover or scrutinise principles. Hav-
ing accepted the analysis, he then denies that any
belief attaches to the existence of matter per se. In
this he is quite right. But he cannot, consistently
with his calling, exhibit the ground of his denial;
for this ground is, as we have shown, the impossi-
bility of performing the analysis, of effecting the
requisite disengagement. But the sceptic has ac-
cepted the analysis, has admitted the disengagement.
He therefore cannot now retract : and he has no wish
to retract. His special mission, his only object, is to
confound the principle which he has accepted by
means of the reaction of its consequences. The in-
evitable consequence which ensues when the analysis
of the perception of matter is admitted is the extinc-
tion of all belief in the existence of matter. The
analysis gives us a kind of matter to believe in to
which no belief corresponds. The sceptic is content
with pronouncing this to be the fact without going
into its reason. It is not his business to correct, by
a direct exposure, the error of the principle which
the dogmatist lays down, and which he accepts. The
analysis is the psychologist's affair; let him look to
it. Were the sceptic to make it his, he would emerge
from the sceptical crisis, and pass into a new stage of
speculation. He, indeed, subverts it indirectly by a
reduetio ad ahsurdum. But he does not say that he

426 REID AND THE

subverts it ; he leaves the orthodox proposer of* the
principle to find that out.

Eeid totally misconceived the nature of scepticism
and idealism in their bearings on this problem. He
regarded them as habits of thought, as dispositions
of mind peculiar to certain individuals of vexatious
character and unsound principles, instead of viewing
them as catholic eras in the development of all gen-
uine speculative thinking. In his eyes they were
subjective crotchets limited to some, and not objec-
tive crises common to all who think. He made per-
sonal matters of them, a thing not to be endured.
For instance, in dealing with Hume, he conceived
that the scepticism which confronted him in the
pages of that great genius was Humes scepticism,
and was not the scepticism of human nature at large
— was not his own scepticism just as much as it was
Hume's. His soul, so he thought, was free from the
obnoxious flaw, merely because his anatomy, shallower
than Hume's, refused to lay it bare. With such views
it was impossible for Eeid to eliminate scepticism
and idealism from philosophy. These foes are the
foes of each man's own house and heart, and nothing
can be made of them if we attack them in the person
of another. Ultimately and fairly to get rid of them,
a man must first of all thoroughly digest them, and
take them up into the vital circulation of his own
reason. The only way of putting them back is by
carrying them forward.

From having never properly secreted scepticism

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 427

and idealism in his own mind, Eeid fell into the
commission of one of the gravest errors of which a
philosopher can be guilty. He falsified the fact in
regard to our primitive beliefs, a thing which the
obnoxious systems against which he was fighting
never did. He conceived that scepticism and ideal-
ism called in question a fact which was countenanced
by a natural belief ; accordingly, he confronted their
denial with the allegation that the disputed fact,
the existence of matter per se, was guaranteed by a
primitive conviction of our nature. But this fact
receives no support from any such source. There is
no belief in the whole repository of the mind which
can be fitted on to the existence of matter denuded
of all perception. Therefore, in maintaining the
contrary, Eeid falsified the fact in regard to our
primitive convictions, in regard to those principles
of common sense which he professed to follow as his
guide. This was a serious slip. The rash step which
he here took plunged him into a much deeper error
than that of the sceptic or idealist. They err1 in
common with him in accepting as their starting-point
the analysis of the perception of matter. He errs, by
himself, in maintaining that there is a belief where
no belief exists.

But do not scepticism and idealism doubt matter's

1 Thty err. This, however, can scarcely be called an error. It
is the business of the sceptic at least to accept the principles gene-
rally recognised, and to develop their conclusions, however absurd
or revolting. If the principles are false to begin with, that is no
fault of his, but of those at whose hands he received them.

428 EEID AND THE

existence altogether, or deny to it any kind of exist-
ence ? Certainly they do ; and in harmony with the
principle from which they start they must do this.
The only kind of matter which the analysis of the
perception of matter yields, is matter per se. The
existence of such matter is, as we have shown, al-
together uncountenanced either by consciousness or
belief. But there is no other kind of matter in the
field. We must, therefore, either believe in the exist-
ence of matter per se, or we must believe in the exist-
ence of no matter whatever. We do not, and we
cannot, believe in the existence of matter per se;
therefore we cannot believe in the existence of mat-
ter at all. This is not satisfactory, but it is closely
consequential.

But why not, it may be said, why not cut the
knot, and set the question at rest, by admitting at
once that every man does, popularly speaking, believe
in the existence of matter, and that he practically
walks in the light of that belief during every moment
of his life ? This observation tempts us into a digres-
sion, and we shall yield to the temptation. The pro-
blem of perception admits of being treated in three
several ways : first, we may ignore it altogether, we
may refuse to entertain it at all; or, secondly, we
may discuss it in the manner just proposed, we may
lay it down as gospel that every man does believe in
the existence of matter, and acts at all times upon
this conviction, and we may expatiate diffusely over
these smooth truths ; or, thirdly, we may follow and

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 429

contemplate the subtle and often perplexed windings
which reason takes in working her way through the
problem — a problem which, though apparently clearer
than the noonday sun, is really darker than the mys-
teries of Erebus. In short, we may speculate the
problem. In grappling with it we may trust our-
selves to the mighty current of thinking, with all
its whirling eddies, certain that, if our thinking be
genuine objective thinking, which deals with nothing
but ascertained facts, it will bring us at last into the
haven of truth. We now propose to consider which
of these modes of treating the problem is the best ;
we shall begin by making a few remarks upon the
second, for it was this which brought us to a stand,
and seduced us into the present digression.

It is, no doubt, perfectly true that we all believe
in the existence of matter, and that we all act up
to this belief. The truth that " each of us exists ; "
the truth that " each of us is the same person to-day
that he was yesterday ; " the truth that " a material
universe exists, and that we believe in its exist-
ence;" all these are most important truths, most
important things to know. It is difficult to see how
we could get on without this knowledge. Yet they
are not worth one straw in communication. And
why not ? Just for the same reason that atmospheric
air, though absolutely indispensable to our existence,
has no value whatever in exchange ; this reason
being that we can get, and have already got, both
the air and the truths in unlimited abundance for

430 REID AND THE

nothing, and thanks to no man. It is not its import-
ance, then, which confers upon truth its value in
communication. The value of truth is measured by
precisely the same standard which determines the
value of wealth. This standard is in neither case
the importance of the article ; it is always its diffi-
culty of attainment, its cost of production. Has labour
been expended on its formation or acquisition : then
the article, if a material commodity, has a value in
exchange ; if a truth, it has a value in communication.
Has no labour been bestowed upon it, and has Nature
herself furnished it to every human being in overflow-
ing abundance : then the thing is altogether destitute
of exchange- value, whether it be an article of matter
or of mind ; no man can, without impertinence, trans-
mit or convey such a commodity to his neighbour.
If this be the law on the subject (and we conceive
that it must be so ruled) it settles the question as to
the second mode of dealing with the problem of per-
ception. It establishes the point that this method
of treating the problem is not to be permitted.

The first and third modes of dealing with our pro-
blem remain to be considered. The first mode ig-
nores the problem altogether ; it refuses to have any-
thing to do with it. Perhaps this mode is the best
of the three. We will not say that it is not : it is at
any rate preferable to the second. But once admit
that philosophy is a legitimate occupation, and this
mode must be set aside, for it is a negation of all
philosophy. Everything depends upon this admis-

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 431

sion. But the admission is, we conceive, a point
which has been already and long ago decided. Men
must and will philosophise. That being the case,
the only alternative left is, that we should dis-
cuss the highest problem of philosophy in the
terms of the third mode proposed. We have called
this the speculative method, which means nothing
more than that we should expend upon the investi-
gation the uttermost toil and application of thought ;
and that we should estimate the truths which we
arrive at, not by the scale of their importance, but
by the scale of their difficulty of attainment, of their
cost of production. Labour, we repeat it, is the stan-
dard which measures the value of truth as well as
the value of wealth.

A still more cogent argument in favour of the
strictly speculative treatment of the problem is this.
The problem of perception may be said to be a re-
versed problem. What are the means in every other
problem are in this problem the end ; and what is
the end in every other problem isv in this problem
the means. In every other problem the solution of
the problem is the end desiderated: the means are
the thinking requisite for its solution. But here the
case is inverted. In our problem the desiderated
solution is the means; the end is the development,
or, we should rather say, the creation of speculative
thought, a kind of thought different altogether from
ordinary popular thinking. " Oh ! then," some one
will perhaps exclaim, " after all, the whole question

432 KEID AND THE

about perception resolves it into a mere gymnastic
of the mind." Good sir, do you know what you are
saying ? Do yon think that the mind itself is any-
thing except a mere gymnastic of the mind ? If you
do, you are most deplorably mistaken. Most assur-
edly the mind only is what the mind does. The ex-
istence of thought is the exercise of thought. Now
if this be true, there is the strongest possible reason
for treating the problem after a purely speculative
fashion. The problem and its desired solution,
these are only the means which enable a new species
of thinking (and that the very highest), viz., specu-
lative thinking, to deploy into existence. This de-
ployment is the end. But how can this end be
attained if we check the speculative evolution in
its first movements, by throwing ourselves into the
arms of the apparently Common Sense convictions
of Dr Eeid ? We use the word " apparently," be-
cause, in reference to this problem, the apparently
Common Sense convictions of Dr Eeid are not
the really Common Sense convictions of mankind.
These latter can only be got at through the severest
discipline of speculation.

Our final answer, then, to the question which led
us into this digression is this : It is quite true that
the material world exists ; it is quite true that we
believe in this existence, and always act in con-
formity with our faith. Whole books may be written
in confirmation of these truths. They may be pub-
lished and paraded in a manner which apparently

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 433

settles the entire problem of perception. And yet
this is not the right way to go to work. It settles
nothing but what all men, women, and children have
already settled. The truths thus formally substan-
tiated were produced without an effort; every one
has already got from Nature at least as much of
them as he cares to have ; and therefore, whatever
their importance may be, they cannot, with any sort
of propriety, be made the subjects of conveyance
from man to man. We must either leave the pro-
blem altogether alone (a thing, however, which we
should have thought of sooner), or we must adopt
the speculative treatment. The argument, more-
over, contained in the preceding paragraph, appears
to render this treatment imperative ; and accordingly
we now return to it, after our somewhat lengthened
digression.

We must take up the thread of our discourse at
the point where we dropped it. The crisis to which
the discussion had conducted us was this: that the
existence of matter could not be believed in at all.

this conclusion : for the psychological analysis gives •
us, for matter, nothing but matter per se. But
matter per se is what no man does or can believe in.
We are reluctant to reiterate the proof; but it is
this : to believe in the existence of matter per se is
to believe in the existence of matter liberated from
perception; but we cannot believe in the existence
of matter liberated from perception, for no power
2 E

434 REID AND THE

of thinking will liberate matter from perception ;
therefore we cannot believe in the existence of
matter per se. This argument admits of being ex-
hibited in a still more forcible form. We commence
with an illustration. If a man believes that a thing
exists as one thing, he cannot believe that this same
thing exists as another thing. For instance, if a
man believes that a tree exists as a tree, he cannot
believe that it exists as a house. Apply this to the
subject in hand. If a man believes that matter
exists as a thing not disengaged from perception, he
cannot believe that it exists as a thing disengaged
from perception. Now, there cannot be a doubt that
the only kind of matter in which man believes is
matter not disengaged from perception. He there-
fore cannot believe in matter disengaged from per-
ception. His mind is already preoccupied by the
belief that matter is this one thing, and, therefore, he
cannot believe that it is that other thing. His faith
is, in this instance, forestalled, just as much as his
faith is forestalled from believing that a tree is a
house, when he already believes that it is a tree.

There are two very good reasons, then, why we
cannot believe in the existence of matter at all, if
we accept as our starting-point the psychological
analysis. This analysis gives us, for matter, matter
per se. But matter per se cannot be believed in :
1st, because the condition on which the belief de-
pends cannot be complied with ; and, 2dly, because
the matter which we already believe in is something

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 435

quite different from matter per se. In trying to be-
lieve in the existence of matter per se, we always
find that we are believing in the existence of some-
thing else, namely, in the existence of matter cum
perceptione. But it is not to the psychological ana-
lysis that we are indebted for this matter, which is
something else than matter per se. The psychological
analysis does its best to annihilate it. It gives us
nothing but matter per se, a thing which neither is
nor can be believed in. We are thus prevented from
believing in the existence of any kind of matter. In
a word, the psychological analysis of the perception
of matter necessarily converts all those who embrace
it into sceptics or idealists.

In this predicament what shall we do ? Shall we
abandon the analysis as a treacherous principle, or
shall we, with Dr Eeid, make one more stand in its
defence ? In order that the analysis may have fair
play we shall give it another chance, by quoting Mr
Stewart's exposition of Eeid's doctrine, which must
be regarded as a perfectly faithful representation.
"Dr Eeid," says Mr Stewart, "was the first person
who had courage to lay completely aside all the
common hypothetical language concerning perception,
and to exhibit the difficulty, in all its magnitude, by
a plain statement of the fact. To what, then, it may
be asked, does this statement amount? Merely to
this: that the mind is so formed that certain im-
pressions produced on our organs of sense, by exter-
nal objects, axe followed by corresponding sensations,

436 EEID AND THE

and that these sensations (which have no more
resemblance to the qualities of matter, than the
words of a language have to the things they denote)
are followed by a perception of the existence and
qualities of the bodies by which the impressions are
made ; that all the steps of this process are equally
incomprehensible." l There are at least two points
which are well worthy of being attended to in this
quotation. First y Mr Stewart says that Eeid "ex-
hibited the difficulty of the problem of perception,
in all its magnitude, by a plain statement of fact."
What does that mean ? It means this : that Eeid
stated, indeed, the fact correctly, namely, that ex-
ternal objects give rise to sensations and perceptions,
but that still his statement did not penetrate to the
heart of the business, but, by his own admission, left
the difficulty undiminished. What difficulty ? The
difficulty as to how external objects give rise to
sensations and perceptions. Eeid did not undertake
to settle that point — a wise declinature, in the esti-
mation of Mr Stewart. Now Mr Stewart, under-
standing, as he did, the philosophy of causation,
ought to have known that every difficulty as to how
one thing gives rise to another, is purely a difficulty
of the mind's creation, and not of nature's making,
and is, therefore, no difficulty at all. Let us explain
this. A man says he knows that fire explodes gun-
powder; but he does not know how or by what
means it does this. Suppose, then, he finds out the

1 ' Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, ' part I. ch. i.

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 437

means, he is still just where he was ; he must again
ask how or by what means these discovered means
explode the gunpowder; and so on ad infinitum.
Now the mind may quibble with itself for ever, and
make what difficulties it pleases in this way; but
there is no real difficulty in the case. In consider-
ing any sequence, we always know the how or the
means as soon as we know the that or the fact.
These means may be more proximate or more remote
means, but they are invariably given either proxi-
mately or remotely along with and in the fact. As
soon as we know that fire explodes gunpowder, we
know how fire explodes gunpowder; for fire is itself
the means which explodes gunpowder, the how by
which it is ignited. In the same way, if we knew
that matter gave rise to perception, there would be
no difficulty as to how it did so. Matter would be
itself the means which gave rise to perception. We
conceive, therefore, that Mr Stewart did not consider
what he was saying when he affirmed that Eeid's
plain statement of facts exhibited the difficulty in all
its magnitude. If Eeid's statement he a statement
of fact, all difficulty vanishes, the question of per-
ception is relieved from every species of perplexity.
If it he the fact that perception is consequent on the
presence of matter, Keid must be admitted to have
explained, to the satisfaction of all mankind, how
perception is brought about. Matter is itself the
means by which it is brought about.

Secondly, then, Is it the fact that matter gives

438 REID AND THE

rise to perception ? That is the question. Is it the
fact that these two things stand to each other in
the relation of antecedent and consequent ? Eeid's
" plain statement of fact," as reported by Mr Stewart,
maintains that they do. Eeid lays it down as a
fact, that perceptions follow sensations, that sensa-
tions follow certain impressions made on our organs
of sense by external objects, which stand first in the
series. The sequence, then, is this: 1st, Eeal ex-
ternal objects ; 2d, Impressions made on our organs
of sense; 3d, Sensations; 4th, Perceptions. It will
simplify the discussion if we leave out of account
Nos. 2 and 3, limiting ourselves to the statement
that real objects precede perceptions. This is de-
clared to be a fact, of course an observed fact; for
a fact can with no sort of propriety be called a fact,
unless some person or other has observed it. Eeid
" laid completely aside all the common hypothetical
language concerning perception." His plain state-
ment (so says Mr Stewart) contains nothing but facts,
facts established, of course, by observation. It is a
fact of observation, then, according to Eeid, that real
objects precede perceptions ; that perceptions follow
when real objects are present. Now, when a man
proclaims as fact such a sequence as this, what must
he first of all have done ? He must have observed
the antecedent before it was followed by the conse-
quent ; he must have observed the cause out of com-
bination with effect; otherwise his statement is a
pure hypothesis or fiction. For instance, when a

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 439

man says that a shower of rain (No. 1) is followed
by a refreshed vegetation (No. 2), he must have ob-
served both No. 1 and No. 2, and he must have
observed them as two separate things. Had he
never observed anything but No. 2 (the refreshed
vegetation), he might form what conjectures he
pleased in regard to its antecedent, but he never
could lay it down as an observed fact, that this ante-
cedent was a shower of rain. In the same way, when
a man affirms it to be a fact of observation (as Dr
Reid does, according to Stewart), that material ob-
jects are followed by perceptions, it is absolutely
necessary for the credit of his statement that he
should have observed this to be the case; that he
should have observed material objects before they
were followed by perceptions; that he should have
observed the antecedent separate from the conse-
quent: otherwise his statement, instead of being
complimented as a plain statement of fact, must be
condemned as a tortuous statement of hypothesis.
Unless he has observed No. 1 and No. 2 in sequence,
he is not entitled to declare that this is an observed
sequence. Now, did Reid, or did any man, ever
observe matter anterior to his perception of it ? Had
Reid a faculty which enabled him to catch matter
before it had passed into perception ? Did he ever
observe it, as Hudibras says, " undressed " ? Mr
Stewart implies that he had such a faculty. But the
notion is preposterous. No man can observe matter
prior to his perception of it ; for his observation of it

440 REID AND THE

presupposes his perception of it. Our observation of
matter begins absolutely with the perception of it.
Observation always gives the perception of matter
as the first term in the series, and not matter itself.
To pretend (as Eeid and Stewart do) that observa-
tion can go behind perception, and lay hold of matter
before it has given rise to perception, this is too
ludicrous a doctrine to be even mentioned ; and we
should not have alluded to it, but for the counte-
nance which it has received from the two great
apostles of common sense.

This last bold attempt, then, on the part of Eeid
and Stewart (for Stewart adopts the doctrine which
he reports) to prop their tottering analysis on direct
observation and experience, must be pronounced a
failure. Eeid's " plain statement of fact " is not a
true statement of observed fact ; it is a vicious state-
ment of conjectured fact. Observation depones to
the existence of the perception of matter as the first
datum with which it has to deal, but it depones to
the existence of nothing anterior to this.

But will not abstract thinking bear out the ana-
lysis by yielding to us matter per se as a legitimate
inference of reason ? No ; it will do nothing of the
kind. To make good this inference, observe what
abstract thinking must do. It must bring under the
notice of the mind matter per se (No. 1) as something
which is not the perception of it (No. 2) ; but when-
ever thought tries to bring No. 1 under the notice of
the mind, it is No. 2 (or the perception of matter)

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 441

which invariably comes. "We may ring for No. 1,
but No. 2 always answers the bell. We may labour
to construe a tree per se to the mind, but what we
always do construe to the mind is the perception of
a tree. What we want is No. 1, but what we always
get is No. 2. To unravel the thing explicitly, the
manner in which we impose upon ourselves is this
As explanatory of the perceptive process, we con-
strue to our minds two number twos, and one of these
we call No. 1. For example, we have the perception
of a tree (No. 2); we wish to think the tree itself
(No. 1) as that which gives rise to the perception.
But this No. 1 is merely No. 2 over again. It is
thought of as the perception of a tree, i.e., as No. 2.
We call it the tree itself, or No. 1 ; but we think it
as the perception of the tree, or as No. 2. The first
or explanatory term (the matter per se) is merely a
repetition in thought (though called by a different
name) of the second term, the term to be explained,
viz., the perception of matter. Abstract thinking,
then, equally with direct observation, refuses to lend
any support to the analysis ; for a thing cannot be
said to be analysed when it is merely multiplied or
repeated, which is all that abstract thinking does in
regard to the perception of matter. The matter per
se, which abstract thinking supposes that it separates
from the perception of matter, is merely an iteration
of the perception of matter.

Our conclusion therefore is, that the analysis of the
perception of matter into the two things, perception

ft

442 EEID AND THE

and matter (the ordinary psychological principle),
must, on all accounts, be abandoned. It is both
treacherous and impracticable.

Before proceeding to consider the metaphysical
solution of the problem, we shall gather up into a
few sentences the reasonings which in the preceding
discussion are diffused over a considerable surface.
The ordinary, or psychological doctrine of perception,
reposes upon an analysis of the perception of matter
into two separate things, a modification of our minds
(the one thing) consequent on the presence of matter
per se, which is the other thing. This analysis inevi-
tably leads to a theory of representative perception,
because it yields as its result a proximate and a remote
object. It is the essence of representationism to
recognise both of these as instrumental in perception.
But representationism leads to scepticism, for it is
possible that the remote 'or real object (matter per
se), not being an object of consciousness, may not be
instrumental in the process. Scepticism doubts its
instrumentality, and, doubting its instrumentality,
it of course doubts its existence; for not being an
object of consciousness, its existence is only postulated
in order to account for something which is an object
of consciousness, viz., perception. If, therefore, we
doubt that matter has any hand in bringing about
perception, we, of course, doubt the existence of
matter. This scepticism does. Idealism denies its
instrumentality and existence. In these circumstan-
ces what does Dr Eeid do ? He admits that matter

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 443

per se is not an object of consciousness ; but he
endeavours to save its existence by an appeal to our
natural and irresistible belief in its existence. But
scepticism and idealism doubt and deny the existence
of matter per se, not merely because it is no object
of consciousness, but, moreover, because it is no
object of belief. And in this they are perfectly right.
It is no object of belief. Dr Eeid's appeal, there-
fore, goes for nothing. He has put into the witness-
box a nonentity. And scepticism and idealism are at
any rate for the present reprieved. But do not scep-
ticism and idealism go still further in their denial ?
do they not extend it from a denial in the existence
of matter per se, to a denial in the existence of matter
altogether ? Yes, and they must do this. They can
only deal with the matter which the psychological
analysis affords. The only kind of matter which the
psychological analysis affords is matter per se, and it
affords this as all matter whatsoever. Therefore, in
denying the existence of matter per se, scepticism
and idealism must deny the existence of matter out
and out. This, then, is the legitimate terminus to
which the accepted analysis conducts us. We are
all, as we at present stand, either sceptics or idealists,
every man of us. Shall the analysis, then, be given
up ? Not if it can be substantiated by any good
plea ; for truth must be accepted, be the consequences
what they may. Can the analysis, then, be made
good either by observation or by reasoning, the only
competent authorities, now that belief has been de-

444 REID AND THE

clared hors de combat ? Stewart says that Eeid
made it good by means of direct observation ; but
the claim is too ridiculous to be listened to for a
single instant. We have also shown that reasoning
is incompetent to make out and support the analysis ;
and therefore our conclusion is, that it falls to the
ground as a thing altogether impracticable as well as
false, and that the attempt to re-establish it ought
never, on any account, to be renewed.

We have dwelt so long on the exposition of the
psychological or analytic solution of the problem of
perception, that we have but little space to spare
for the discussion of the metaphysical doctrine. We
shall unfold it as briefly as we can.

The principle of the metaphysical doctrine is
precisely the opposite of the principle of the psycho-
logical doctrine. The one attempts an analysis ; the
other forbears from all analysis of the given fact,
the perception of matter. And why does metaphysic
make no attempt to dissect this fact? Simply be-
cause the thing cannot be done. The fact yields not
to the solvent of thought : it yields not to the solvent
of observation : it yields not to the solvent of belief,
for man has no belief in the existence of matter
from which perception (present and remembered) has
been withdrawn. An impotence of the mind does
indeed apparently resolve the supposed synthesis ;
but essential thinking exposes the imposition, restores

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 445

the divided elements to their pristine integrity, and
extinguishes the theory which would explain the
datum by means of the concurrence of a subjective
or mental, and an objective or material factor. The
convicted weakness of psychology is thus the root
which gives strength to metaphysic. The failure of
psychology affords to metaphysic a foundation of
adamant. And perhaps no better or more compre-
hensive description of the object of metaphysical
or speculative philosophy could be given than this :
that it is a science which exists, and has at all times
existed, chiefly for the purpose of exposing the
vanity and confounding the pretensions of what is
called the "science of the human mind." The
turning-round of thought from psychology to meta-
physic is the true interpretation of the Platonic
conversion of the soul from ignorance to knowledge,
from mere opinion to certainty and satisfaction : in
other words, from a discipline in which the thinking
is only apparent, to a discipline in which the thinking-
is real. Ordinary observation does not reveal to us
the real but only the apparent revolutions of the
celestial orbs. We must call astronomy to our aid
if we would reach the truth. In the same way
ordinary or psychological thinking may show us the
apparent movements of thought, but it is power-
less to decipher the real figures described in that
mightier than planetary scheme. Metaphysic alone
can teach us to read aright the intellectual skies.
Psychology regards the universe of thought from the

■

446 REID AND THE

Ptolemaic point of view, making man, as this system
made the earth, the centre of the whole : metaphysic
regards it from the Copernican point of view, mak-
ing God, as this scheme makes the sun, the regu-
lating principle of all. The difference is as great
between "the science of the human mind" and
metaphysic as it is between the Ptolemaic and the
Copernican astronomy, and it is very much of the
same kind.

But the opposition between psychology and meta-
physic, which we would at present confine ourselves
to the consideration of, is this: the psychological
blindness consists in supposing that the analysis so
often referred to is practicable, and has been made
out : the metaphysical insight consists in seeing that
the analysis is null and impracticable. The supe-
riority of metaphysic, then, does not consist in doing
or in attempting more than psychology. It consists
in seeing that psychology . proposes to execute the
impossible (a thing which psychology does not her-
self see, but persists in attempting) ; and it consists,
moreover, in refraining from this audacious attempt,
and in adopting a humbler, a less adventurous, and a
more circumspect method. Metaphysic (viewed in
its ideal character) aims at nothing but what it can
fully overtake. It is quite a mistake to imagine
that this science proposes to carry a man beyond
the length of his tether. The psychologist, indeed,
launches the mind into imaginary spheres; but
metaphysic binds it down to the fact, and there

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 447

sternly bids it to abide. That is the profession of the
metaphysician considered in his beau-ideal. That,
too, is the practice (making allowance for the infir-
mities incident to humanity, and which prevent the
ideal from ever being perfectly realised), the prac-
tice of all the true astronomers of thought, from
Plato down to Schelling and Hegel. If these philo-
sophers accomplish more than the psychologist, it is
only because they attempt much less.

In taking up the problem of perception, all that
metaphysic demands is the whole given fact. That
is her only postulate, and it is undoubtedly a stipu-
lation which she is justly entitled to make. Now,
what is in this case the whole given fact ? When
we perceive an object, what is the whole given fact
before us ? In stating it we must not consult ele-
gance of expression; the whole given fact is this:
"We apprehend the perception of an object." The
fact before us is comprehended wholly in that state-
ment, but in nothing short of it. Now, does meta-
physic give no countenance to an analysis of this
fact ? That is a new question, a question on which
we have not yet touched. Observe, the fact which
metaphysic declares to be absolutely unsusceptible
of analysis is " the perception of matter." But the
fact which we are now considering is a totally dif-
ferent fact ; it is otcr apprehension of the perception
of matter, and it does not follow that metaphysic will
also declare this fact to be ultimate and indecom-
poundable. Were metaphysic to do this it would

448 REID AND THE

reduce us to the condition of subjective or ego-
istic idealism ; but metaphysic is not so absurd. It
denies the divisibility of the one fact, but it does
itself divide the other. And it is perfectly com-
petent for metaphysic to do this, inasmuch as " our
apprehension of the perception of matter " is a dif-
ferent fact from " the perception of matter itself."
The former is, in the estimation of metaphysic, sus-
ceptible of analysis, the latter is not. Metaphysic
thus escapes the imputation of leading us into sub-
jective idealism. This will become more apparent as
we proceed.

" Our apprehension of the perception of matter ; "
this, then, is the whole given fact with which meta-
physic has to deal. And this fact metaphysic pro-
ceeds to analyse into a subjective and an objective
factor, giving to the human mind that part of the
datum which belongs to the human mind, and with-
holding from the human mind that part of the
datum to which it has no proper or exclusive claim.
But at what point in the datum does metaphysic
insert the dissecting-knife, or introduce the solvent
which is to effect the proposed dualisation ? At a
very different point from that at which psychology
insinuates her "ineffectual fire." Psychology cuts
down between perception and matter, making the
former subjective and the latter objective. Meta-
physic cuts down between " our apprehension " arid
" the perception of matter ; " making the latter, " the
perception of matter," totally objective, and the

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 449

former, " our apprehension," alone subjective. Ad-
mitting, then, that the total fact we have to deal
with is this, " our apprehension of the perception of
matter," the difference of treatment which this fact
experiences at the hand of psychology and meta-
physic is this : they both divide the fact ; but psycho-
logy divides it as follows : " Our apprehension of
the perception of," that is the subjective part of the
datum, the part that belongs to the human mind;
" Matter per se " is the objective part of the datum,
the part of the datum which exists independently of
the human mind. Metaphysic divides it at a dif-
ferent point, " our apprehension of " : this, according
to metaphysic, is the subjective part of the process,
it is all which can with any propriety be attributed
to the human mind: "the perception of matter,"
this is the objective part of the datum, the part of it
which exists independently of the human mind, and
to the possession of which the human mind has no
proper claim, no title at all.

Before explaining what the grounds are which
authorise metaphysic in making a division so dif-
ferent from the psychological division of the fact
which they both discuss, we shall make a few re-
marks for the purpose of extirpating, if possible,
any lingering prejudice which may still lurk in the
reader's mind in favour of the psychological partition.

According to metaphysic, the perception of matter
is not the whole given fact with which we have to
deal in working out this problem (it is not the whole
2 F

450 REID AND THE

given fact ; for, as we have said, our apprehen-
sion of, or participation in, the perception of
matter, this is the whole given fact) ; but the per-
ception of matter is the whole objective part of the
given fact. But it will perhaps be asked, Are there
not here two given facts ? Does not the perception
of matter imply two data? Is not the perception
one given fact, and is not the matter itself another
given fact, and are not these two facts perfectly
distinct from one another ? No ; it is the false
analysis of psychologists which we have already
exposed that deceives us. But there is another
circumstance which perhaps contributes more than
anything else to assist and perpetuate our delusion.
This is the construction of language. We shall
take this opportunity to put the student of philo-
sophy upon his guard against its misleading ten-
dency.

People imagine that because two (or rather three)
words are employed to denote the fact (the percep-
tion of matter), that therefore there are two separate
facts and thoughts corresponding to these separate
words. But it is a great mistake to suppose that the
analysis of facts and thoughts necessarily runs par-
allel with the analysis of sounds. Man, as Homer
says, is fiepox}/, or a word-divider ; and he often car-
ries this propensity so far as to divide words where
there is no corresponding division of thoughts or of
things. This is a very convenient practice in so far
as the ordinary business of life is concerned, for it

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 451

saves much circumlocution, much expenditure of
sound. But it runs the risk of making great havoc
with scientific thinking ; and there cannot be a doubt
that it has helped to confirm psychology in its worst
errors, by leading the unwary thinker to suppose that
he has got before him a complete fact or thought,
when he has merely got before him a complete word.
There are whole words which, taken by themselves,
have no thoughts or things corresponding to them,
any more than there are thoughts and things corre-
sponding to each of the separate syllables of which
these words are composed. The words " perception "
and " matter " are cases in point. These words have
no meaning, they have neither facts nor thoughts
corresponding to them when taken out of correlation
to each other. The word " perception " must be
supplemented (mentally at least) by the words "of
matter," before it has any kind of sense, before it
denotes anything that exists; and in like manner
the word " matter " must be mentally supplemented
by the words " perception of," before it has any kind
of sense, or denotes any real existence. The psycho-
logist would think it absurd if any one were to main-
tain that there is one separate existence in nature
corresponding to the syllable mat-, and another sepa-
rate existence corresponding to the syllable tcr, the
component syllables of the word "matter." In the
estimation of the metaphysician it is just as ridicu-
lous to suppose that there is an existing fact or modi-
fication in us corresponding to the three syllables

452 KEID AND THE

perception, and a fact or existence in nature corre-
sponding to the two syllables matter. The word
" perception " is merely part of a word which, for
convenience sake, is allowed to represent the whole
word ; and so is the word " matter." The word " per-
ception-of-matter " is always the one total word, the
word to the mind, and the existence which this word
denotes is a totally objective existence.

But in these remarks we are reiterating (we hope,
however, that we are also enforcing) our previous
arguments. No power of the mind can divide into
two facts, or two existences, or two thoughts, that
one prominent fact which stands forth in its integrity
as the perception-of-matter. Despite, then, the mis-
leading construction of language, despite the plausible
artifices of psychology, we must just accept this fact
as we find it ; that is, we must accept it indissoluble
and entire, and we must keep it indissoluble and
entire. We have seen what psychology brought us
to by tampering with it, under the pretence of a
spurious, because impracticable analysis.

We proceed to exhibit the grounds upon which
the metaphysician claims for the perception of mat-
ter a totally objective existence. The question may
be stated thus : Where are we to place this datum ?
in our minds or out of our minds ? We cannot place
part of it in our own minds and part of it out of our
minds, for it has been proved to be not subject to
partition. Wherever we place it, then, there must
we place it whole and undivided. Has the percep-

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 453

tion of matter, then, its proper location in the human
mind, or has it not ? Does its existence depend upon
our existence, or has it a being altogether indepen-
dent of us ?

Now that, and that alone, is the point to decide
which our natural belief should be appealed to ; but
Dr Reid did not see this. His appeal to the convic-
tion of common sense was premature. He appealed
to this belief without allowing scepticism and ideal-
ism to run their full course ; without allowing them
to confound the psychological analysis, and thus
bring us back to a better condition by compelling
us to accept the fact, not as given in the spurious
analysis of man, but as given in the eternal synthesis
of God. The consequence was, that Eeid's appeal
came to naught. Instead of interrogating our belief
as to the objective existence of the perception of
matter (the proper question), the question which he
brought under its notice was the objective existence
of matter per se, matter minus perception. Now,
matter per se, or minus perception, is a thing which
no belief will countenance. Eeid, however, could not
admit this. Having appealed to the belief, he was
compelled to distort its evidence in his own favour,
and to force it, in spite of itself, to bear testimony to
the fact which he wished it to establish. Thus Dr
Eeid's appeal not only came to naught, but, being
premature, it drove him, as has been said and shown,
to falsify the primitive convictions of our nature.
Scepticism must indeed be terrible when it could

«

454 REID AND THE

thus hurry an honest man into a philosophical false-
hood.

The question, then, which we have to refer to our
natural belief, and abide the answer whatever it may
be, is this : Is the perception of matter (taken in its
integrity, as it must be taken), is it a modification of
the human mind, or is it not ? We answer unhesi-
tatingly for ourselves, that our belief is that it is not.
This " confession of faith " saves us from the imputa-
tion of subjective idealism, and we care not what other
kind of idealism we are charged with. We can think
of no sort of evidence to prove that the perception of
matter is a modification of the human mind, or that the
human mind is its proper and exclusive abode ; and
all our belief sets in towards the opposite conclusion.
Our primitive conviction, when we do nothing to per-
vert it, is, that the perception of matter is not, either
wholly or in part, a condition of the human soul ; is
not bounded in any direction by the narrow limits
of our intellectual span ; but that it " dwells apart,"
a mighty and independent system, a city fitted up
and upheld by the everlasting God. Who told us
that we were placed in a world composed of matter,
which gives rise to our subsequent internal percep-
tions of it, and not that we were let down at once
into a universe composed of external perceptions of
matter, that were there beforehand and from all
eternity, and in which we, the creatures of a day, are
merely allowed to participate by the gracious Power
to whom they really appertain ? We, perversely phi-

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 455

losophising, told ourselves the former of these alter-
natives; but our better nature, the convictions that
we have received from God Himself, assure us that
the latter of them is the truth. The latter is by far
the simpler, as well as by far the sublimer doctrine.
But it is not on the authority either of its simplicity
or its sublimity that we venture to propound it ; it is
on account of its perfect consonance, both with the
primitive convictions of our unsophisticated com-
mon sense, and with the more delicate and complex
evidence of our speculative reason.

When a man consults his own nature in an impar-
tial spirit, he inevitably finds that his genuine belief
in the existence of matter is not a belief in the inde-
pendent existence of matter per se, but it is a belief
in the independent existence of the perception of
matter which he is for the time participating in. The
very last thing which he naturally believes in is, that
the perception is a state of his own mind, and that
the matter is something different from it, and exists
apart in naturd rerum. He may say that he believes
this, but he never does really believe it. At any rate
he believes, in the first place, that they exist together,
wherever they exist. The perception which a man
has of a sheet of paper does not come before him as
something distinct from the sheet of paper itself.
The two are identical, they are indivisible ; they are
not two, but one. The only question then is, Whether
the perception of a sheet of paper (taken as it must
be in its indissoluble totality) is a state of the man's

456 REID AND THE

own mind, or is no such state. And, in settlement
of this question, there cannot be a doubt that he
believes, in the second place, that the perception of a
sheet of paper is not a modification of his own mind,
but is an objective thing which exists altogether in-
dependent of him, and one which would still exist,
although he and all other created beings were anni-
hilated. All that he believes to be his (or subjective)
is his participation in the perception of this object.
In a word, it is the perception of matter, and not
matter per se, which is the kind of matter in the
independent and permanent existence of which man
rests and reposes his belief. There is no truth or
satisfaction to be found in any other doctrine.

This metaphysical theory of perception is a doc-
trine of pure intuitionism : it steers clear of all the
perplexities of representationism ; for it gives us in
perception only one, that is, only a proximate object ;
this object is the perception of matter, and this is
one indivisible object. It is not, and cannot be,
split into a proximate and a remote object. The
doctrine, therefore, is proof against all the cavils of
scepticism. We may add, that the entire objectivity
of this datum (which the metaphysical doctrine pro-
claims) makes it proof against the imputation of
idealism, at least of every species of absurd or ob-
jectionable idealism.

But what are these objective perceptions of matter,
and to whom do they belong ? This question leads
us to speak of the circumstance which renders the

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 457

metaphysical doctrine of perception so truly valuable.
This doctrine is valuable chiefly on account of the
indestructible foundation which it affords to the a
priori argument in favour of the existence of God.
The substance of the argument is this : Matter is the
perception of matter. The perception of matter does
not belong to man ; it is no state of the human mind,
man merely participates in it. But it must belong
to some mind, for perceptions without an intelligence
in which they inhere are inconceivable and contra-
dictory. They must therefore be the property of the
Divine mind ; states of the everlasting intellect ;
ideas of the Lord and Euler of all things, and which
come before us as realities, so forcibly do they con-
trast themselves with the evanescent and irregular
ideas of our feeble understandings. We must, how-
ever, beware, above all things, of regarding these
Divine ideas as mere ideas. An idea, as usually un-
derstood, is that from which all reality has been ab-
stracted; but the perception of matter is a Divine
idea, from which the reality has not been abstracted,
and from which it cannot be abstracted.

But what, it will be asked, what becomes of
the senses if this doctrine be admitted ? What is
their use and office ? Just the same as before, only
with this difference, that whereas the psychological
doctrine teaches that the exercise of the senses is the
condition upon which we are permitted to appre-
hend objective material things, the metaphysical
doctrine teaches that the exercise of the senses is

458 REID AND THE

the condition upon which we are permitted to ap-
prehend or participate in the objective perception of
material things. There is no real difficulty in the
question just raised ; and therefore, with this expla-
natory hint, we leave it, our space being exhausted.

Anticipations of this doctrine are to be found in
the writings of every great metaphysician, of every
man that ever speculated. It is announced in the
speculations of Malebranche, still more explicitly in
those of Berkeley ; but though it forms the substance
of their systems, from foundation-stone to pinnacle,
it is not proclaimed with sufficiently unequivocal
distinctness by either of these two great philosophers.
Malebranche made the perception of matter totally
objective, and vested the perception in the Divine
mind, as we do. But he erred in this respect : hav-
ing made the perception of matter altogether objec-
tive, he analysed it in its objectivity into perception
(Me) and matter per se. We should rather say that
he attempted to do this ; and of course he failed, for
the thing, as we have shown, is absolutely impossible.
Berkeley made no such attempt. He regarded the
perception of matter as not only totally objective,
but as absolutely indivisible; and therefore we are
disposed to regard him as the greatest metaphysician
of his own country (we do not mean Ireland; but
England, Scotland, and Ireland), at the very least.

When this elaborate edition of Eeid's Works shall
be completed, shall have received its last con-
summate polish from the hand of its accomplished

PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 459

editor, we promise to review the many important
topics (partly philosophical and partly physiological)
which Sir William Hamilton has discussed in a
manner which is worthy of his own great reputation,
and which renders all compliment superfluous. We
are assured that the philosophical public is waiting
with anxious impatience for the completion of these
discussions. In the meantime, we heartily recom-
mend the volume to the student of philosophy, as
one of the most important works which our higher
literature contains, and as one from which he will
derive equal gratification and instruction, whether
he agrees with its contents or not.

MISCELLANEOUS LECTURES

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

NOVEMBEE 1856.

1. You scarcely require to be told that the world
is imbued with a pretty strong prejudice against
metaphysics. Go where we will, we find that the
very term is a word of bad omen, a synonym for
subtle trifling, an abbreviated expression for the
unprofitable, the perplexing, the indefinite, the un-
certain, and the incomprehensible.

2. This prejudice, it must be admitted, is by no
means unfounded. Looking to the past and the pre-
sent state of metaphysical literature, we behold, cer-
tainly, a most bewildering prospect. In selecting our
own opinions amid such conflicting testimonies, by
what principle of choice shall we be directed ? We
look in vain for a conductor in whom implicit re-
liance can be placed. The more one reads, the more
confused does one become ; the farther one sails, the
farther one seems to recede from the wished-for

464 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

haven. We seem engaged with an inquiry which
has neither beginning, middle, nor end ; we are em-
barked on an illimitable ocean which welters with
unappeasable controversies; we are gazing on an
infinite battle-field, raging with interminable strife.
Instead of being what it professes to be, a science
which is to settle everything, this science seems to
unfix the very foundations of the rational soul, and of
the solid universe. Doctrines rise up against doctrines,
opinions overwhelm opinions, " velut unda supervenit
undam," so that this science which gives itself out as
the science of the immutable, seems itself to be the
most mutable of things ; whence, not without reason,
has it been said that the words which St Peter spake
to the lying wife of Ananias may be fitly applied to
each philosophy as they successively come upon the
field, " Behold, the feet of them which have buried
thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out."

3. Is then the cultivation of metaphysics to be
abandoned in disgust or in despair? Great profi-
cients in the physical sciences, wedded to their own
objects and captivated with their own methods, have
proscribed it as a vain and illegitimate and unprofit-
able pursuit. But such a prohibition is founded on
an entire miscalculation of the capacities, the aspira-
tions, and the demands of the human soul. To sup-
pose that the light of metaphysics — fitful or lurid or
bewildering as it may too often be — can ever be ex-
tinguished, is to suppose that man has ceased to have

NOVEMBER 1856. 465

a thinking mind. As long as man thinks, this light
must burn. The deep river of speculative thought,
with all its devious windings, with all its perilous
shoals, whirlpools, and cataracts, will flow on for
ever; and he must be a rustic, a barbarian indeed,
who would loiter on its banks in the vain expecta-
tion of beholding the mighty flood at length run dry.

" Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum. "

4. The indestructible vitality of metaphysical
science I hold to be a settled point, in spite of the
discouraging appearance which both its past and its
present condition may present. It is a spirit which
cannot be put down, because it has its origin in
an intellectual craving which cannot be repressed.
And let people decry the science as they may, of this
we may be assured, that they know it in their secret
hearts to be the most essential and the most ethereal
manifestation of mental power which the human in-
tellect can exhibit.

5. Nevertheless, the picture which I have just
drawn of the unsatisfactory state of this science is
not overcharged, and therefore much must be done
in the way of reducing its chaotic elements to order
and precision, if metaphysics are to take the lead —
nay, if they are ever to hold their place — among the
themes of academical instruction. Above all things,
it is incumbent on the cultivator and expounder of

2 G

466 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

this science to have formed and to be able to exhibit
a distinct conception of the business which it takes
in hand, the work it has to do, the end or object at
which it aims. For very much of the confusion which
besets the science is attributable to indistinct notions
on this most essential point. Before a man can hit
any mark, he must at any rate see and keep steadily
in view the point at which he aims. This, however,
has been but rarely done in the science of which we
have to treat. It is also necessary that the cultivator
and expounder of this science should lay down a clear
and distinct method, and should adhere to it consis-
tently. And thus by exhibiting a definite concep-
tion of the end at which the science aims, and of the
method by which that end is to be reached, the ex-
positor of metaphysics will be at any rate intelligible,
if not convincing ; and if he cannot altogether avoid
error, he will at least avoid what is worse, obscurity
and confusion.

6. In the ' Institutes of Metaphysic,' which I shall
use to some extent as a text-book in this class, I
have endeavoured to contribute some small aid to the
attainment of these important ends, clearness and pre-
cision in metaphysical thinking, and lucidity of order
in the exhibition of metaphysical problems. I have
endeavoured to arrange the problems in such a way
that the science may have a beginning, middle, and
conclusion ; to arrange them, in short, in such an order
that the successive demonstrations may be based on

. NOVEMBER 1856. 467

those which precede, and may serve as a basis to those
which are to follow. In particular, I have endea-
voured to present a distinct conception of what, in my
opinion at least, is the proper vocation of metaphysi-
cal philosophy. (See Introduction, § 39, p. 32.) As
my opinion as to the proper vocation and business of
philosophy happens to differ considerably from that
generally entertained by the philosophers of this
country, I shall take this opportunity of bringing
forward some of the grounds on which I venture to
think that philosophy is properly the rectifier, and
not the ratifier, as our common-sense philosophers
believe her to be, of the deliverances of ordinary
opinion. I shall endeavour to show you that in
standing forth as the corrective of ordinary thinking,
philosophy merely follows the analogy of all the other
sciences. But reserving for subsequent discussion
the details embraced in these Institutes, I shall take
this opportunity of laying before you certain very
general but fundamental views which I venture to
entertain in regard to philosophy or metaphysics
(for I use these as convertible terms), and from the
exposition of which you will distinctly perceive in
what respect my system stands contrasted more par-
ticularly with the antecedent philosophy which has
been generally taught in this country.

7. I commence by requesting your attention to a
distinction which may be said to be at the root of all
science, the distinction between the real and the

468 INTRODUCTOKY LECTURE,

apparent; or, as it may be otherwise expressed, be-
tween the hidden and the obvious. By the apparent
and obvious I mean such facts as lie upon the very
surface of things, such phenomena as come before us
of their own accord, and require no effort on our part
to apprehend them. By the real and the hidden I
mean such facts as are not of this obtrusive character,
such truths as do not force themselves spontaneously
on our observation, but are to be reached and dis-
closed only by means of an intellectual effort. All
science, I say, in the sense of inquiry or higher know-
ledge, proceeds upon this distinction, because it is
plain that science in the sense of inquiry is not re-
quired to bring before us the apparent and the obvious,
objects or facts of this character being already suf-
ficiently patent without any investigation. Science,
therefore, in the proper sense of the word, is directed
exclusively upon the real or the hidden ; and it takes
notice of the apparent and the obvious only that it
may pass beyond them into the regions where truth
or reality abides. In Platonic Greek, S6£a, or opinion,
is the term by which the faculty of the apparent is
designated, while eiricrry'jiJLri designates the faculty by
which the real is apprehended.

8. The whole scheme of the natural universe
affords illustrations of this distinction between the
real and the apparent, on which all science proceeds.
If a man, by looking up to the starry heavens, were
able, by that mere inspection, to determine the dis-

NOVEMBER 1856. 469

tances and magnitudes and courses of the planetary
orbs, he would require no science to instruct him.
He discerns, however, only what is apparent, and this
discernment does not disclose to him what is real.
To discover this, he must put forth an intellectual
effort ; he must inquire, he must have recourse to
astronomy ; and astronomy will teach him that what
is real in the stupendous spectacle before him is
very different from what is apparent. This science,
therefore, is founded on a distinction between the
real and the apparent, between the obvious and the
hidden. It, the kizia-T^ixr] of the heavens, deals with
the real ; man's ordinary observation of the celestial
luminaries, his S6£a, deals only with the apparent.
Deny this distinction and you extinguish the science.
In like manner, chemistry is a science, inasmuch as
it treats of the real as distinguished from the appa-
rent. If no distinction existed, or if no distinction
were to be made between the apparent and the real,
in other words, if the apparent and the real were
identical or coincident, there could be no such science
as chemistry, for, in that case, the internal structure
and composition of bodies would be disclosed to our
most superficial observation, and no science would
be required to teach us the elements of which they
are composed. But here, too, the apparent is not the
real. A superficial glance at natural objects discloses
to us the obvious, apparent; but science, inquiry,
investigation, these are required to lay before us the
hidden real facts of nature with which chemistry deals.

470 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

9. The same distinction could very easily be shown
to be the foundation of every other science. All the
physical sciences have this in common, that they are
researches into what is real as distinguished from
what is apparent, that is, from what lies exposed
and obvious on the very surface of things. Perhaps,
however, I have said enough to render intelligible
the distinction of which I have been speaking. Let
me just repeat, that upon whatever object our atten-
tion may be directed, no science of that object is
possible unless we admit in regard to the object in
question, whatever it may be, a distinction between
the apparent and the real, the obvious and the hid-
den ; for, as I have already remarked, if the apparent
and the real are identical, no science or research is
necessary to instruct us in the nature of the object
which we may be considering. And let me add this,
too, that while science brings before us the real, it
at the same time corrects or sets aside the apparent.
Astronomy, in teaching us that the earth revolves
round the sun, corrects or dislodges the apparent
fact of natural observation that the sun revolves
round the earth.

10. This distinction between real and apparent,
then, being understood, I have now to show you for
what purpose I have brought it under your notice,
and how it may enable you to understand the posi-
tion which my system of metaphysics occupies, or
professes to occupy, in relation to our antecedent

NOVEMBER 1856. 471

systems of philosophy. We have seen that in the
natural world there is a wide discrepancy between
the real and the apparent, and that the physical
sciences, paying but little heed to the apparent, and
placing no trust in it, press forward to the ascertain-
ment of the real. .We have now to ask, Does this
same distinction, this same discrepancy between
what is real and what is merely apparent, hold good
in the world of mind as well as in the world of mat-
ter ? The answer to this question is important. Be-
cause if this distinction between the real and apparent
does not hold good in the world of mind, if there be
no difference between what we really think and what
we only apparently think, between what we really
know and what we apparently know, if there be
no discrepancy between apparent thinking and real
thinking, between apparent knowing and real know-
ing, there can be no science of metaphysics, no re-
search into the nature of knowledge, because no such
science or research would be required, just as no
astronomy would be required if there were no dif-
ference between the real and the apparent move-
ments and magnitudes of the stars. While, on the
other hand, if in the world of thought there be the
same relative difference between the real and the
apparent which prevails in the natural universe, a
science, the science of metaphysics, will be required
to bring before us the facts of our own real thinking,
and to correct and displace the facts of our own mere
apparent thinking.

472 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

11. This, then, I say, is the question, Does the dis-
tinction between the real and the apparent hold good
in the world of mind just as it holds good in the world
of matter ? In other words, Does our apparent think-
ing, our apparent consciousness, present phenomena
which are just as little worthy of being trusted or
accepted as true and final, as the apparent heavens
are admitted to present phenomena of this character,
phenomena which astronomy cannot accept as ulti-
mate and true, but which that science sets aside ?
And, on the other hand, are there real truths of
thought which, lying behind or beyond these mere
apparent truths, may be reached by means of science,
just as the truths of the starry skies- are reached by
means of astronomy ? In answer to this question
our antecedent philosophers have said, that in the
world of mind the apparent and the real are coinci-
dent and identical; that the deliverances of our
ordinary consciousness are to be accepted as true
and ultimate. They have said that philosophy is
not the corrector, but is rather the confirmer of these
deliverances. I, on the other hand, assert that the
distinction between the apparent and the real, the
obvious and the ultimate, obtains in the world of
thought no less than in the world of things. I hold
that philosophy exists for the purpose of correcting
and not for the purpose of confirming the deliver-
ances of ordinary thinking ; and, in maintaining this
opinion, I set myself against ordinary thinking no
farther than all the other sciences do. It is the

NOVEMBER 1856. 473

business of all science to displace the apparent and
to establish the real ; and, in doing this, speculative
philosophy merely follows the example and analogy
of her brethren.

This, I say, is the distinction on which is founded
the science of metaphysics, as I endeavour to incul-
cate them. While, on the other hand, I venture to
say that our antecedent Scottish philosophy recog-
nises no such distinction ; or rather virtually denies
that any such discrepancy exists. It accepts as true
and real and ultimate the deliverances of our mere
apparent thinking, without considering whether there
is not a real thinking at the back of this apparent
thinking, by which all its decisions might be altered
or reversed. In a word, I hold that the real opera-
tions of our minds are just as little apparent on the
surface of our ordinary consciousness as the real re-
volutions of the heavenly bodies are apparent to the
eye of the ordinary and uninstructed observer. While,
on the contrary, our antecedent philosophy is of opin-
ion that our apparent is our real thinking, or that
there is no real thinking carried on in the human
mind of a character totally different from the appa-
rent thinking which is there transacted. It is on
this ground that our antecedent philosophy lays claim
to the title of common sense; an appellation which
may be conceded to it, if by common sense is meant
only the deliverance of our apparent thinking.

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

NOVEMBEK 1857.

1 . One of the topics touched upon in the Introduc-
tion to the 'Institutes of Metaphysic' is the neces-
sity of philosophy being reasoned, the obligation
which is incumbent on its teacher to exhibit his
views in a demonstrative and systematic form. I
now propose to offer a few remarks by way of illus-
tration, enlargement, and enforcement of this truth ;
because the longer I reflect upon it, the more am I
convinced of the stringency of the obligation re-
ferred to. I am prompted to make these observa-
tions on account of the hostility which the attempt
to reduce speculative science to precision and exacti-
tude frequently calls forth. I venture to oppose the
prejudice which holds that truth can scarcely be
made to square with logic, that sublime knowledge
is incompatible with rigorous method, that profound
thought sets at defiance the formulae of lucid order ;
and opposing myself to this prejudice, I shall attempt

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 475

to show you that the true ends of tuition can only
be fulfilled by means of a course of instruction which
brings knowledge into harmony with system, and
exhibits thought in the light and symmetry of
demonstration.

2. The aim of all education is twofold : it is two-
fold whether looked at on the side of him that
teaches or on the side of him that learns ; that is,
on the part of the student, one aim is the acquisi-
tion of knowledge, the other aim is the develop-
ment and exercise and cultivation of his intellectual
powers. His aim is thus double or twofold : he aims
at the attainment of truth, he aims also at getting
his capacities of thought called forth, trained, and
disciplined. In the same way on the part of the
teacher the end or aim of education is twofold : he
also has a double function to discharge ; he has to
aim at the communication of knowledge, and he has
moreover to aim at the cultivation and exercise
of the faculties of those whom he endeavours to
instruct.

3. Another mode in which the distinction may
be put is this. Every intellectual pursuit is to be
regarded as at once a science and a discipline. These
words are indeed little more than two forms of expres-
sion for the same thing, and as such they are some-
times used convertibly in our own and in other lan-
guages, yet they are not absolutely synonymous. The

476 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

term science rather indicates that end of intellectual
endeavour which centres in the possession of know-
ledge ; the term discipline rather points to that other
end of intellectual endeavour which centres in the
evolution and exercise of reason and reflection. Every
intellectual pursuit has thus two sides, a theoretical
and a practical. Viewed on its theoretical side, it
consists of a body of knowledge, and may properly
be called a science ; viewed on its practical side, it is
a means of unfolding, training, and exercising the
mind, of educing its latent capacities of thought
(as the very word education indicates), and as such,
it is properly called a discipline. This is what is
meant by saying that instruction is or ought to be
both theoretical and practical. It ought to be theo-
retical, because its business is to impart knowledge ;
it ought to be practical, because its business is to
exercise and strengthen the mind. You will thus
perceive (and I make this remark parenthetically),
that practical teaching, in the sense in which I have
explained it — and I believe this is the proper view
to take of it — is something very different from what
is usually understood by that expression. Practical
teaching is generally regarded as the communication
of a knowledge which may be useful to us in the
daily concerns of life, in our professional pursuits, and
in the ordinary intercourse of society. Far be it from
me to disparage the importance of such knowledge ;
but the teaching which imparts it is rather theo-
retical than practical. Practical teaching, I again

NOVEMBER 1857. 477

say, is that which looks not so much to the convey-
ance of knowledge as to the growth and culture of
the faculties by which that knowledge is received.

4. These, then, are the two inseparable ends which
all properly directed education keeps in view. It
does not aim at either, to the exclusion or prejudice
of the other. But if it gives a preference to either,
it rather aims at overtaking the end by which the
mind is disciplined, than the end by which the mind
is stored. It endeavours to be theoretical, that is,
to impart knowledge ; but it labours above all things
to be practical, that is, to discipline the faculties.
Hence it is that mathematics and the dead languages
occupy so early and so prominent a place in our sys-
tems of academical instruction. Valuable as these
are as an acquisition, they are still more valuable
as a training; they are to be regarded rather as
practical than as theoretical instruments of tuition.
If you were all to awaken suddenly some fine morn-
ing and to find yourselves expert mathematicians
and accomplished scholars without having made any
effort to become so, you would have lost the best
part of the benefit which these studies are^tted to
convey. Your minds might be filled with know-
ledge, but your own faculties and your powers of
attention, of judgment, of comparison, of generalisa-
tion, and of reason, would be in abeyance.

5. The case I have just put is a fanciful and some-

478 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

what extreme supposition. It is certain, however,
that knowledge may be acquired under conditions
which cultivate in very different degrees the powers
of the acquirer ; in other words, it is certain that one
man may acquire knowledge, and in the attainment
may find his whole intellectual being enlightened
and invigorated, while another man may possess the
same knowledge without receiving a corresponding
benefit in the way of mental improvement. Thus,
for example, the man who might acquire a know-
ledge of the Latin language, as he does that of his
mother tongue, by associating in early life with those
who spoke it, would not, by means of that acquisi-
tion, have his powers cultivated in an equal degree
with those of the man who amid alien influences
had learned that language by dint of systematic and
persevering study ; the former individual might have
a more fluent command over the language in its
practical usage, but the latter would have a far deeper
and more rational insight into the universal struc-
ture and mechanism of speech. His faculties have
been aroused and strengthened by the difficulties
they had overcome ; those of the other, who had im-
bibed the language instinctively without an effort
from the society that surrounded him, lie dormant and
inert, or at least the acquirement of the Latin tongue
has not contributed to their development. Again,
a large amount of the mere facts of physical science
may be known by the superficial smatterer no less
than by the profound mathematician. Yet, by what

NOVEMBER 1857. 479

a different tenure in the two cases are these truths
held ! How different is the mental training which
their possession evinces, the enlightenment by which
they are accompanied ! In the one case they are
lifeless and isolated facts without unity or coherence ;
in the other case they constitute an organic whole,
they are rooted in central principles, evolved by
elaborate calculation, linked together by intelligible
affinities, and illuminated by the light of reason.

6. If it be true, then, that the end of education is
twofold, this, a fortiori, must be true in regard to
philosophy, the highest instrument of education ; and
accordingly the teacher of philosophy has to consider
what the proper means are by which the twofold
aim of science may be overtaken and its double
function performed. He has to consider what these
means are, and he has, moreover, to carry them into
execution. In regard to the one end, that which
consists in the communication of truth or knowledge,
it is obvious that this is to be attained simply by the
statement of truth, or of what the instructor believes
to be such. In regard to the other end, that which
consists in the development and cultivation of the stu-
dent's intelligence (the practical part of the teacher's
aim), it is almost equally obvious that this is to be
overtaken only by the exhibition of truth in a syste-
matic order and in a reasoned form ; or, to express
this shortly, the exposition of truth is the means by
which the mind is stored, the exhibition of system is

480 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

the means by which the mind is disciplined. And
hence philosophy, a philosophy which would- over-
take both of these ends, as all philosophy should,
and which would at once fill and discipline the mind,
must be a scheme of systematised truth. And as
system is merely another name for reason, it is thus
the duty of all speculative philosophy — of that dis-
cipline whose business it is to fulfil the highest de-
mands of education, and to teach the student that
hardest of all lessons both to teach and to learn,
namely, how to think — it is the duty of this science
to be from first to last a consistent scheme of me-
thodised and reasoned knowledge.

7. There is an old Greek saying, HoXv/ixaOla vovv ou
SiSda-Kei, that is, much learning or multifarious know-
ledge does not truly educate the intellect. What
more is required ? This additional element is re-
quired, that our knowledge be reduced to system;
that it be strictly methodised. If knowledge is the
light of the soul, system is the light of knowledge.
Indeed, it is not going too far to affirm that truth is
intelligible — intelligible to its possessor — only in so
far as it is amenable to the forms of reason ; and it
is certain that he can make it intelligible to others
only in proportion to the success with which he can
evolve it in an unbroken series out of the principles
from which it springs. So far is truth from being
repugnant to logic, I hold that this is the vesture
in which she most delights to clothe herself. She

NOVEMBER 1857. 481

shrinks not from dialectic, that is the very element in
which she lives; and she rejoices in the symmetry
of demonstration. It is only by presenting know-
ledge in the form of reason that the teacher can
expect to elicit and train the reason of those whom
he addresses. Eeason in one man listens to nothing
except reason in another ; thought, genuine thought,
in one mind, responds only to the call of genuine
thought in another mind. But thoughts, in order to
be genuine, in order to have root, must coexist in a
vital and organic unity, and not as a tissue of float-
ing fragmentary opinions. And hence it is that it is
only by means of the exhibition of systematic think-
ing on the part of the teacher that lessons of thinking-
can be taught to those whom he instructs.

8. I do not say that the teacher of philosophy will
always succeed in setting to work the minds of his
students by showing them in a methodical and con-
catenated order the workings of his own reason ; but
when that method fails I certainly know of no other
which can succeed, of no other by which the study
of metaphysics may be made a practical discipline
and a means of developing and cultivating the intel-
ligence of the student. This assuredly is not to be
effected by mapping out the human mind into a set
of independent faculties, and exhibiting in a desul-
tory manner the facts of an empirical and unsystem-
atic psychology. Such teaching is at the best merely
theoretical. It is not discipline: it contributes no-
2 H

482 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.

thing to the practical development of the student's
intellectual life. I have said that truth, strictly
speaking, is intelligible only when deduced from
principles, and presented in a rigorously reasoned
form. I say this more particularly in regard to
metaphysical truth. I limit my assertion to the
truth with which philosophy has to deal ; and while
I maintain that the regeneration of metaphysical
science can be expected only from the importation
of demonstration into its processes, I affirm, like-
wise, that its hitherto unsatisfactory characters, its
impotent condition, and the disrepute into which it
has fallen, are in a large measure attributable to the
unreasoned form, the unsystematic procedure which
it has adopted. On this latter topic, the unsettled
state of metaphysics, I now propose to say a few
words, with an eye to the conclusion that a better
condition of things can be looked for only when
Eeason and the light and the force of pure thinking
have been brought to bear more vigorously and per-
severingly than has ever yet been done in the culti-
vation of this science.

LECTURE,

APEIL 1858.

1. Philosophy is of course the subject of which the
history of philosophy treats. It is obvious, therefore,
that before we can reanimate and verify, as proposed,
the philosophical systems of the past, we must, first
of all, have formed a distinct idea in regard to what
philosophy itself is. It is not by means of a man's
ordinary thinking, but by means of his philoso-
phical thinking, that the verification spoken of can
be effected. You might carry the old systems home
to your ordinary consciousness, you might attempt
to infuse your ordinary consciousness into them, you
might do this for ever, and you would not obtain one
particle of insight either into them or into their
grounds. Your popular everyday consciousness will
not help you here; you must have established a
philosophical consciousness; in other words, you
must know what philosophy itself is. When you
have a right and clear idea of this, you can then go

484 LECTURE, APRIL 1858.

to work to some purpose. Assuming your philo-
sophy to be true, as I am of course entitled to do,
inasmuch as I have supposed your idea of it to be
right, you can now breathe into the old systems the
breath of your living thoughts, and the old bones will
come to life ; for in all genuine speculative thinking-
there is the closest intercommunion, if people would
but see it, between the living and the dead. Pytha-
goras will be no longer remote, and it will seem but
yesterday since Parmenides threw off the garb of his
mortality. Plato will speak to you like a familiar
friend; his ideas, so far from being unintelligible,
will now come before us as the only intelligibilities
in the heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the
waters under the earth; and Aristotle's hard tech-
nicalities, dry and uninteresting no longer, will be
found fertile with the germs of the profoundest and
most inexhaustible speculative knowledge. To re-
peat this in one word — to apply the rule rightly, you
must have a correct and clear conception of philo-
sophy itself. In order to deal effectually with the
history of philosophy, in order to derive any benefit
from it as students, and in order to confer any bene-
fit on it as historians, we must, first of all, be philo-
sophers ourselves.

2. This is a new position. We have hitherto been
considering the history of philosophy, and the rule
by which we must be guided either in studying or
in writing it. The consideration of these points has

LECTURE, APRIL 1858. 485

brought us to this conclusion, that to do either of
these things effectually we must, in the first place,
be philosophers ourselves, or, at any rate, must have
a clear and correct idea of what philosophy itself is.
This, I say, is a new position, for it raises the new
question, But what is philosophy ? How shall we go
to work in order to obtain a clear conception of it ?
How shall we set about the acquisition of a philo-
sophical as distinguished from a common conscious-
ness ? Here, too, I shall merely offer a few hints,
for I think that by this time you ought to have
formed for yourselves a pretty distinct conception of
what philosophy is in its means and in its ends.

3. To obtain a distinct idea of philosophy let us
ask, first of all, What is its converse ? If we can get
hold of the opposite or counter idea, this will help
us to grasp the conception we are in quest of. The
converse of philosophy is opinion. You frequently
hear the expression "philosophical opinions" made
use of. That is altogether a misnomer; strictly
speaking, it is a contradiction. There are no opin-
ions in philosophy properly so called. For what are
opinions ? Opinions are optional thoughts, arbitrary
excogitations, thoughts which we may entertain or
not, just as we please. We may maintain an opinion,
we may also maintain its converse ; at least, it is not
impossible to maintain the converse of any opinion
that may be formed, for that is precisely what is
meant by an opinion ; it is a thought which we can

486 LECTURE, APRIL 1858.

help thinking, and in the place of which we may, by
possibility at least, entertain the opposite thought.
To define opinion almost in one word, I should
say that opinions are thoughts which we can help
thinking.

4. Philosophy is the converse of opinion: philo-
sophy therefore consists essentially of thoughts which
we cannot help thinking ; I say essentially, for such is
the imperfection of our faculties, the limited extent
of our knowledge, and the waste condition of our
reason, which, looking to mankind generally, is very
far from having received the culture of which it is
susceptible ; such, I say, is the actual state of things
that opinion enters to a greater or smaller extent into
the composition of philosophy. But it is present
there as the accident, not as the essence. Opinions,
or thoughts which a man can help thinking, have no
business in philosophy. They are there under pro-
test and only by sufferance, only until their places
can be occupied by something better : occupied, that
is, by thoughts which we cannot help thinking ; for
just as I have defined opinions as thoughts which we
can help thinking, so I now define philosophy as that
which is made up of thoughts which we cannot help
thinking, necessary thoughts in short, the ground
elements of reason.

5. Philosophy, then, is the embodiment and expo-
sition of necessary thought, of thoughts which a man

LECTURE, APRIL 1858. 487

cannot help thinking, of processes which the mind
cannot help performing in the exercise of its intelli-
gent functions ; and that is the only correct concep-
tion of it which we can form. It is this in its essence,
although, as I have said, it may accidentally embrace
alien and illegitimate materials. Such, I conceive, is
the correct general idea of philosophy, and he who
entertains it knows generally ivhat philosophy is.
But this idea requires a good deal of explanation,
for although a correct idea, it is by no means a clear
one as yet. I now take a new step in advance. I
proceed to clear up this idea of philosophy.

6. What may occur to you at the outset is this :
if philosophy consists of thoughts which a man can-
not help thinking, surely it can be no such very diffi-
cult pursuit. So you would naturally think, but in
thinking so you would be mistaken. The thoughts
which we cannot help thinking are precisely those
which it is most difficult to lay hold of and bring to
light. You are aware of the doctrine in the Institutes
in which the effect of familiarity in deadening our
intellectual insight is described and illustrated ; also
that the first in nature is the last in science. I need
not therefore at present insist upon that considera-
tion. Suffice it to say, that whatever we are most
familiar with we take the least notice of. Hence the
thoughts which we cannot help thinking never attract
our attention ; in our ordinary moods they never rise
into distinct consciousness, they are there all the

488 LECTURE, APRIL 1858.

while, but they are present as though they were
absent, and it often requires a severe intellectual
strain before we can make ourselves cognisant of
them. Indeed it may be assumed that the whole
efforts of speculation, from the earliest times until
now, have been directed to the single end of bringing
men to think, to think clearly that which at no mo-
ment of their lives are they able to avoid thinking ;
and how difficult this task is, how laborious this pro-
cess, is proved by the fact that this end has as yet
been very imperfectly overtaken. It may appear a
paradox, but it is not really one; it is undeniable
truth to say this, that Plato and all great philoso-
phers have existed for the purpose of teaching people
to think what not one man in a million has as yet
succeeded in thinking, but what nevertheless every
man necessarily thinks in the very exercise of his
powers as an intelligent being.

7. But I am still dealing, you will think, too much
with generalities. Let us get to something like spe-
cialty, to some definite and particular illustration of
the foregoing position. Well, what you want, I sup-
pose, is this, that I should place distinctly before you
one of those necessary and inevitable thoughts which
men cannot help thinking, and which scarcely any
man has as yet been able to think clearly or in the
right way. I shall do so, but I shall begin by plac-
ing before you an opinion, or set of opinions, on a par-
ticular point, in order that by the contrast you may

LECTURE, APRIL 1858. 489

afterwards perceive more clearly what the necessary,
the unavoidable, the philosophical thought on that
same point is. Let me ask, then, what your opinion
is in regard to the mind ? This that people call mind
may be taken as a common and fair subject of opinion,
and opinions differ in regard to it. One man is of
opinion that it is a sort of vapour ; another man is of
opinion that it is a kind of fire ; another man's opinion
is that it is a species of attenuated matter different
both from vapour and fire; the opinion of a fourth
is that it is a material substance, nature unknown ; a
fifth thinks that it is immaterial, a spiritual substance,
nature also unknown, altogether different from matter,
and so on. These are all so many different opinions,
and in all these opinions there is not one particle of
thinking. It may be that the man who supposes
that the mind is immaterial or spiritual is more in
the right than the others. But still his judgment is
a mere opinion. He might have thought otherwise.
It rests on no necessary grounds. It is not a thought
which we cannot help thinking. If this opinion has
a place in philosophy, it is there without any legiti-
mate title. It is only accidentally, and not essen-
tially philosophical.

8. Let us now consider what thought, necessary
thought, declares in regard to the mind. Let us con-
sider the case of a genuine speculator, of one who
thinks and who does not form opinions in regard to
the mind. Of course we put aside this word " mind,"

490 LECTURE, APRIL 1858.

together with all its synonyms. No man will ever
get at any idea who begins with a word. He must
first get hold of the idea, and then he must see that a
word is required to express it. This is the bane of
all philosophical thinking, that we first take hold of
certain words and then we attach certain ideas to
them. No good can come of that procedure ; indeed,
infinite mischief has already proceeded out of it. We.
must first grasp the idea as a necessary truth, or
thought we cannot help having, and then we must
attach to it the word, for of course every idea must
be fixed and expressed in words. Let us take the
case, then, of this speculator. He may have lived
two thousand years ago, or two months ago, or he
may be living at the present moment ; for time and
the fashions of different times have no influence
here, all necessary thoughts are the same at all times
and in all places. He casts his eyes upon the uni-
verse, and he sees perpetual changes going on ; at one
moment he sees one thing, at the next moment he
sees a different thing, and the same may be affirmed
in regard to all his other senses and their intima-
tions. Change, in short, forces itself on all sides
upon his notice. He obtains the idea of change
without any difficulty, and to this idea he attaches a
word which expresses it ; he calls it change : change,
change prevails everywhere, that is the order of the
day. To this speculator all objects are in a state of
change; even those which appear in themselves to
be permanent are in this state so far as they are his

LECTURE, APRIL 1858. 491

perceptions, because at any moment they may cease
to be his perceptions, and he receives or may receive
different impressions. His perceptions are or may
be incessantly changing ; all his thoughts are or may
be incessantly changing. In short, he is cognisant
at first of nothing but change. He is inclined to
generalise that observation, and to maintain that
change is the essence of the universe. After a time,
however, he considers, and he asks himself the ques-
tion, But is there nothing but change? In other
words, does the observer of the changes change just
as much as the objects of his observation change ?
Is there at every moment a new observer as well
as a new observed ? This consideration causes the
speculator to pause. No, says he, there is not, there
cannot be a new observer for every new thing ob-
served. If there were, no observation, no knowledge,
no consciousness, could take place. The speculator
sees that, if he, the observer, were changed into a
different observer with every change that took place
in his perception, that all thoughts, all cognition, all
perception, would be rendered impossible and absurd.
In other words, he sees that the wildest contradiction
is involved in the supposition that every time the
object is changed he (the subject, as we nowadays
call it) is also changed ; that a different he came into
the field with every new presentation. And hence
there is forced upon him this necessary thought, this
thought which he cannot help thinking, and which
we may divide into two thoughts : first, that change

492 LECTURE, APRIL 1858.

is not the only thing of which he is cognisant, as he
heretofore supposed ; and, secondly, that there is a
permanent of which he is cognisant amid all the
vicissitudes that surround him, whereof he is cog-
nisant through sense. These are the two thoughts
which he now entertains, and which he cannot help
entertaining. He must think change as one of the
elements of his consciousness, otherwise there would
be an absolute uniformity in his perceptions, which
would be equivalent to his having no perceptions
at all ; he must think permanence as the other ele-
ment of his consciousness, otherwise there would be
an absolute diversity (a new subject for every new
object), which also would be tantamount to no con-
sciousness at all.

9. Now you have got hold of an idea, an idea
opposed to that idea which we call change; as the
converse of this idea, you have got hold of the con-
ception of a permanent, an immutable, a universal,
an identical amid all changes; this idea must have
a word attached to it ; and, accordingly, to this idea
you attach the word mind. By this process you
have been enabled to get hold of the idea before
you had recourse to the word; of course you were
acquainted with the word before we went through
the process, but we did not avail ourselves of that
acquaintance in order to assist us to the idea; no,
we got hold of the idea independently of the word,
and now the word has for us a meaning. It has a

LECTURE, APKIL 1858. 493

meaning, because it expresses a necessary thought :
the thought of the permanent and universal, as
opposed to the fluctuating and particular. The word
mind, then, is the word which gives expression to
the thought of the permanent and universal, just as
the word matter gives expression to the thought of
the changeable and particular. These two ideas are
directly antagonistic; it is impossible to regard the
one as convertible with the other, although, at the
same time, they are absolutely indivisible; wher-
ever change is thought there is also thought per-
manence conversely. It is impossible to regard mind
and matter as the same, unless we regard change and
not-change as the same, or permanence and non-per-
manence as the same. It is impossible to regard
matter as everything, as the whole, unless we hold
that change is everything, and that there is no per-
manence anywhere; it is impossible to regard mind
as everything, as the whole, unless we hold that
permanence is everything, and that there is no diver-
sity anywhere ; but it is impossible to think that
there is nothing but change, it is impossible to
think that there is nothing but permanence. We
must hold that there is both change and permanence ;
in other words, we must hold that there is both
matter and mind as the two distinct elements of the
universe. These are thoughts which we cannot help
thinking, and in this way, and only in this way, do
we obtain an intelligible distinction between mind
and matter ; not, however, as two distinct substances,

494 LECTURE, APRIL 1858.

but only as two distinct elements of one substance,
and no distinction can be more absolute and complete
than this. Now, all those opinions about mind being
vapour or fire, this or that, may be given to the
winds. It is nothing but the universal and perma-
nent, and no other character can be assigned without
destroying the very idea of it.

10. One word in conclusion. The illustration now
laid before you may be regarded as an exposition in
outline of the whole philosophy of ancient Greece.
There cannot be a doubt that the early Greek philo-
sophers reached the idea of mind through the process
described. It was because the idea of something
permanent was a thought which they could not help
thinking that they gave expression to this thought
in the word which signifies mind. It was because
the idea of something changing or changeable was a
thought that they could not help thinking that they
gave expression to this thought in the word which
signifies matter. The early Greek philosophy was
occupied entirely in the adjustment and clearing up
of these ideas ; and these ideas of mind on the one
hand and of matter on the other, were felt to be
ideas which men could not help thinking, inasmuch
as the idea of a permanent on the one hand, and of
a mutable on the other, of one and many, are ideas
which we cannot help thinking. But the further
prosecution of this subject I must reserve until a
future occasion.

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

NOVEMBEK 1861.

1. In this lecture I propose to consider a subject
which lies at the very threshold of moral philosophy,
and which may therefore form an appropriate theme
for a general and introductory address. The topic
to which I refer is the relation of ethics to psycho-
logy ; in other words, the relation of moral philoso-
phy to that more extensive study known as the
science of the human mind. This latter science,
psychology namely, is a department of philosophy
on which all or most of you have already, I believe,
bestowed some attention, and in which you have
made some progress. What we have now to consider
is, how this science stands related to the department
of philosophy, which is the province of study treated
of in this class. The complete illustration of this
connection would require a wide survey of philoso-
phy, both in itself and in its history; but enough
may now be said to make intelligible to you the

496 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

more general bearings of the relation, and at any rate
its discussion may serve to break the ground in such
a way as to suit it for our future more detailed opera-
tions. In considering this subject, what I wish to
bring before you is this: that ethics must always
have their roots in psychology ; that as our psycho-
logy is, so must our ethics be (that is, if we preserve
any consistency in our reasoning); that a confused
or imperfect or erroneous psychology must always
issue in a confused or imperfect or erroneous moral
theory; and that a correct moral theory is only to
be reached through a correct psychological system.

2. To trace this connection, I must first of all
speak of psychology, and of the principal problem
with which psychology has to deal. The main
problem of psychology is that concerning the nature
and origin of our knowledge. More explicitly stated,
the question is this : What cognitions or elements of
cognition are native to the mind itself, and what
cognitions or elements of cognition are imparted to
it from without ? Or stated perhaps still more dis-
tinctly, it is this : In the formation of our knowledge,
that is, in our apprehensions of the things around us,
what ingredients belong to, and are supplied by, the
mind, and what ingredients are contributed by foreign
and external causes ?

3. Now, two very extreme answers, two answers
widely opposed to each other, may be conceived to

NOVEMBER 1861. 497

be returned to this question. We may suppose the
one answer to be that our knowledge is wholly, or
almost wholly, due to the mind itself ; that none, or,
at any rate, very few of the ingredients of cognition
are derived from foreign sources. And conversely
we may suppose the other answer to be, that all, or
nearly all, the elements of cognition are derived from
foreign sources, and that none, or scarcely any, of
them are native products of the mind. I have laid
down these two answers in an extreme form, in order
that you may the better understand them. The one
solution is, that the mind originates all, or nearly
all, its knowledge from within, and derives almost
nothing ah extra. The other solution is, that the
mind derives all, or nearly all, its knowledge, ah
extra, and originates scarcely anything from within.

4. These two solutions, which I have advanced by
way of supposition, have found plenty of upholders,
as we know from the history of philosophy — up-
holders not perhaps in quite the extreme forms in
which I have expressed them, but in forms certainly
approaching very near to these extremes. Indeed
these two answers may be said to divide the psycho-
logical world into the two most general divisions
which it presents. The party which tends towards
the one extreme consists of those who advocate the
psychology of innate ideas. The party which ap-
proaches, and I think we may say sometimes reaches,
the other extreme, consists of those who advocate
2 I

498 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

the psychology of sensation. These are the two
poles, and they stand widely asunder, of the psycho-
logical world ; the doctrine of innate ideas on the
one hand, and the doctrine of sensation on the other
hand. You will understand how widely apart these
doctrines are placed if you will bear in mind the
extremes which I have stated, extremes which they
approach if they do not exactly reach. The extreme
doctrine of innate ideas allows nothing to foreign
sources, but finds the origin of all cognition in the
mind itself ; the extreme doctrine of sensation allows
nothing to the mind itself, but finds the origin of all
cognition in foreign sources. That antithesis may
enable you to keep in mind and to understand
generally the character and tendency of the two great
psychological schemes which I say have divided
the philosophical world. It may here occur to you
that a third alternative is possible as a solution of
the problem respecting the origin of our knowledge,
and that this third solution is the truest and most
natural of any. Why, you will ask, why may we
not combine into one the two solutions just given,
and thus obtain the most correct and the most
tenable explanation ? Why may we not say that
our knowledge is due neither entirely to the mind
itself, nor entirely to the action of external things,
but that it is the joint result of both these constitu-
ents ? Now there can be no doubt that the true
answer to the problem does lie somewhere in this
middle alternative. But there is a difficulty in ad-

NOVEMBER 1861. 499

justing the terms of the compromise, a difficulty on
which I shall not touch at present, further than by
saying that in connection with this solution the
question arises, Which of the two constituents, the
mental or the material, is the more important and
essential to the process ? Some inquirers will make
the one set of elements the more essential, others
will make the other set of elements the more essen-
tial. The one contribution or the other will be
regarded as of preponderant or exclusive, or over-
whelming importance ; and thus we are again brought
to the two alternatives spoken of, and are led either
to adopt the doctrine which represents innate ideas
as the essential groundwork of our knowledge, or we
adopt the other doctrine, that our sensations, induced
by external causes, are the basis and origin of our
cognitions. At any rate, in order to simplify the
discussion, I leave out of account at present that
third or middle alternative, which aims at conciliat-
ing the two solutions, and I confine my remarks to
the two extreme answers on which I have touched.

5. I go on, then, to speak of the psychology of innate
ideas, and of the ethics to which this system gives
rise. This system contends that there are cognitions,
or (at least) elements of cognition in the mind prior
to its intercourse with external things, and that
these mental elements are far more essential to our
completed knowledge of objects than aught that is
supplied to us by these objects themselves; that

500 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

they are in fact the " light of all our seeing ; " that
without them all our knowledge would be a blank, and
all our experience impossible. And that, therefore,
we may truly affirm that our cognitions, in all their
essential qualities, are originated from within, and
are native to the mind itself. Such, stated very
briefly, is the doctrine of innate ideas.

6. The innate ideas for which this system contends
are otherwise called a priori cognitions, or a priwi
elements of cognitions. They are thus distinguished
from any elements which may be supplied to us
from without, and which are called a posteriori.
The latter are also termed empirical, as depending
on outward experience ; while the others are held
to exist independently of all outward experience,
although this may be and is required to elicit them
into manifestation. Among the innate or a priori
ideas are to be ranked the conceptions of Being, of
number, of space, of time, of cause, of substance, of
resemblance, of difference. I do not profess to give
you a complete list. But remove these conceptions,
say the advocates of this psychology, and no know-
ledge of any kind would be possible ; they are the
groundwork and conditions and essential constituents
of all cognition. Nor if they were removed could
they by any possibility be supplied to the mind from
without; because the mind could not receive them
unless it already had them. They are the conditions
under which all knowledge is received into the mind ;

NOVEMBEK 1861. 501

and therefore they cannot themselves be received into
the mind ; for in order to receive themselves they must
be already there to render their own reception pos-
sible. The inevitable and irresistible inference is, that
they are already there, or, if not these ideas, that at
any rate something innate and a priori is already in
the mind, and that the mind has within it cognitions
or elements of cognition which are not imparted to it
from any foreign quarter. Such, stated very briefly,
is the ground on which the psychology of innate
ideas rests, the reasoning by which it is supported.

7. That there is much truth in this doctrine of
innate ideas, when rightly understood and expound-
ed, I firmly believe. I cannot pause at present to
attempt its complete explanation and adjustment.
The following hint must suffice. In speaking of
innate ideas, I have called them indifferently " cog-
nitions " or * elements of cognition." But in attempt-
ing to establish a right doctrine on this subject, these
two expressions, "cognitions" and "elements of
cognition," would require to be most signally and
accurately distinguished. If the innate ideas be
represented as mere elements of cognition, a perfectly
correct and intelligible and impregnable psychology
of innate ideas may, I conceive, be set on foot. But if
the innate ideas be regarded as cognition, that is, as
completed cognitions, nothing but an untrue doctrine,
a doctrine of the most unintelligible and most be-
wildering character, can emerge. I may add that it

502 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

is under the latter expression, the expression of
"cognitions," that the doctrine has been usually
expounded by philosophers. They have treated the
innate ideas as cognitions, of course completed cog-
nitions ; and hence they have failed, I think, to con-
struct a true or intelligible theory in regard to them.

8. In consequence of this mistake, the neglect, viz.,
to discriminate between cognitions and mere elements
of cognition, the psychology of innate ideas has come
to us in a very crude state, in a very imperfect and un-
tenable form, a form which was sure to provoke, and
which did provoke, a reaction in favour of the other
extreme, I mean the psychology of sensation. The
advocates of innate ideas were held to have magnified
to an undue extent the inborn principles of know-
ledge, to have multiplied without careful investiga-
tion the native properties of the mind ; to have allow-
ed, in short, far too much, in the formation of know-
ledge, to man's original and internal nature, and far
too little to his outward experience. The system, as
it stood, was felt to be crude and insufficient. Its
doom was sealed for a time at least, and it is gene-
rally believed to have expired under the assault of
the English philosopher Locke.

9. But we have now to ask, What kind of ethics
might we naturally expect to germinate from this
system of psychology ? The answer is, that we
might naturally expect the doctrine of innate ideas

NDVEMBER 1861. 503

to give birth to a system of innate or intuitive moral-
ity. And such we find to be the case. In the his-
tory of philosophy the one of these theories is closely
affiliated to the other.

10. The ethical system, which springs from the
doctrine of innate ideas, is the hypothesis which con-
tends for an innate moral faculty, an instinctive per-
ception of the difference between right and wrong,
a natural sense of justice and injustice, an original
conscience which teaches us to govern our passions,
and prompts us to do to others as we would that
they should do unto us. This system of ethics main-
tains that we have from nature social affections which
lead us into friendly fellowship with our kind, and
incline us to consult the interests of others, no less
than private feelings, which excite us to promote our
own personal advantage. It holds that we grow up
to be the moral agents that we are through an innate
sense of duty, which at once approves of our conduct
when we do right, and disapproves of it when we do
wrong. It allows but little influence to the varied
circumstances which operate upon us from without.
It finds our moral sentiments not to be the result of
any foreign agencies, but the spontaneous produce of
our own internal constitution.

11. Our unreflective judgment is rather in favour
of this hypothesis. When we look, with a not very
critical eye, at the ongoings of human life, we are apt

504 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

to think that people have grown up of their own
accord to be what they are. We do not, indeed, go
so far as to suppose that a man who from his in-
fancy had lived in solitude would, either in his moral
or intellectual manifestations, bear any close resem-
blance to ourselves. Still, I think that we naturally
tend to approximate to such a supposition. We
entertain a half-conscious impression that we and our
friends should have been tolerably like what we now
are, and should have demeaned ourselves very much
as we now do, even though the external agencies to
which we have been subject had not been brought to
bear upon us. In a word, it appears to the un-
thoughtful observer as if our manners, our morals,
our social sentiments, our modes of thought, and
ways of life, came to us from nature, and were part
and parcel of our original selves.

12. The doctrine of an innate morality, which is
founded on the doctrine of innate ideas, thus seems
to be still further reinforced by the natural senti-
ments of mankind. But whatever support it may
receive from this quarter, or from the psychology on
which it rests, it is an hypothesis which must be pro-
nounced highly unsatisfactory in any form in which
it has hitherto appeared. I do not say that the doc-
trine is in the main, or in itself, untrue. I am quite
of a contrary opinion. I believe that, like the psy-
chological doctrine of innate ideas, this doctrine,
under due limitations and accompanied by proper

NOVEMBER 1861. 505

explanations, is substantially correct. Man's mo-
rality is rooted in his innermost nature. It grows
necessarily out of his very reason, but it is certainly
moulded into what it is by the form and pressure
of the society in which he lives, and by the force of
the circumstances which surround him. These alter
considerably his primitive nature, and engraft new
shoots on the original stock of his being. Example,
education, traditional usages, prescriptive customs,
the approbation and disapprobation of our fellow-men,
all these are foreign agencies, and they exert such a
potent influence on each of us, and so shape and
modify our original dispositions, as to render it in
the highest degree difficult to determine accurately
what are the native or primary, and what the acquir-
ed or secondary elements in our moral constitution.
And we learn nothing from being told that our con-
science or sense of duty, our sentiments in regard to
right and wrong, our obligation to pursue one course
of conduct and to avoid another course, are ultimate
principles which admit of no further analysis or ex-
planation. Even if this were true, it would teach us
nothing. But it is not true. It is not true that con-
science operates like an instinct; it is not true that
we distinguish instinctively between the right and
the wrong, as we do between the pleasurable and the
painful; it is not true that our social feelings arise, as
our selfish ones do, without the intervention of any
antecedent principle. Above all, the advocates of an
innate morality have failed to note the very import-

506 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

ant part which thought or reason plays in the con-
struction of our moral sentiments. They have not
explained or comprehended the exact nature of
thought, this being indeed rather a psychological
than a moral research, and one which has been left
very much in arrear by the psychology of innate
ideas. The consequence is that the ethics which
uphold an innate morality have inherited all the
crudeness of the psychology on which they are
founded, and exhibit that crudeness in a still more
conspicuous aspect.

13. I pass on to the second topic of the discussion,
viz., to consider the psychology of sensation, and the
ethics which arise out of it. This system is a recoil
from the doctrine of innate ideas. Just as the latter
scheme tends to enlarge as widely as possible the
sphere of innate cognition, and to attach to it the
utmost importance, so the former proceeds on the
principle of limiting this sphere to its narrowest
dimensions, or of exploding it altogether. It allows
to the mind no original furnishing at all, except a
power of receptivity. The name of this receptive
and entirely passive capacity is sensation. Outward
things conveying impressions to the senses in parti-
cular, and to the nervous organism generally, are the
source and origin of all our ideas. The mind is at
first an absolute blank, and contributes no elements
of its own to the formation of its cognitions. It
originates nothing from within, but receives all its

NOVEMBER 1861. 507

knowledge from without. All knowledge and all
ideas are ultimately resolvable into sensations.
Thoughts and conceptions are merely faint and
transformed sensations.

14. Such is sensationalism in its most extreme
form as propounded by some of the French meta-
physicians of the last century. Locke, by admitting
reflection as well as sensation to be a source of our
ideas, had previously taught a modified form of this
doctrine. But still, even in Locke's system, reflec-
tion holds a subordinate place, and sensation is with
him the chief and dominant, if not the sole original
capacity of the human mind.

15. Before proceeding to consider the ethics which
arise out of this system, we must examine carefully
the nature of sensation. We must investigate and
ascertain its character as a psychological phenomenon
before we can judge of it as the basis of an ethical
hypothesis. The characteristics of sensation are
twofold. First, it is either pleasurable or painful;
secondly, it is individual or particular. On the first
of these points little requires to be said. Some
degree of pleasure or of pain is involved in all our
sensations. It may be thought that some of them
are neutral or indifferent. But this indifference seems
either to be a mixture of pleasure and pain in which
these balance each other, or else it is a state of ease
and tranquillity brought about in some other way.

508 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

But in whatever way the tranquillity which looks
like indifference is brought about, it is still a pleasur-
able condition. Or if the state of apparent indiffer-
ence be a state of ennui and satiety, in that case it is
a condition of pain. A sensation which was absolute-
ly indifferent to us would be no sensation ; it would
not be felt at all. All sensations then, even those
which seem to be indifferent, involve either pleasure
or pain as their constant and inseparable ingredient.

16. Sensation, and the capacity of receiving it,
being, according to this psychology, the only original
quality or endowment of our nature ; and sensation
being always an expression either of pleasure or of
pain, and the sensational capacity being a suscepti-
bility of these feelings, it follows that pleasure and
pain, and a susceptibility thereof, form originally the
whole staple and essence of our constitution.

17. The second characteristic of sensation is, that
it is strictly individual or particular. This charac-
teristic of sensation is very important, but it is less
obvious and has been less noticed than the other.
Indeed, I am not aware that it has been noticed at
all by any psychological observer. But it is a qual-
ity of sensation which it is very necessary to keep in
view, if we would understand in their true form the
ethics which have their origin in the psychology of
sensation. By the neglect to note and signalise this
characteristic of sensation, the true aspect of the

NOVEMBER 1861. 509

sensational ethics has been disguised and obscured.
All sensation then, I repeat, is individual and par-
ticular. By this I mean that each sensation is pre-
cisely the single sensation which it is, and any group
or series of sensations is precisely that single group
or series of sensations, and not anything more. A
sensation has no general or indefinite compass.
Hence no sensation, and no series of sensations, can
ever carry the being who experiences them out of
and beyond himself. He is tied down by sensation
and confined exclusively to himself. Particular
pleasures and pains are experienced, there the
matter begins and ends ; not a hair's-breadth beyond
his own sentient states can the creature experiencing
the sensations travel. His condition is one of utter
and entire isolation. No sensations, transform them
as we may, can ever transport a being beyond the
limits of itself, nothing can do that but thought:
and thought, as different from sensation, has no place
in this psychology. If you are not quite satisfied
with this statement, consider the matter in this way :
I cannot feel your pleasures and your pains, nor can
you feel mine. Each of us can only feel his own ;
and therefore if sensation be all in all it is absolutely
impossible for us to pay the slightest heed to the pains
and pleasures of one another. To do that we should
require actually to experience each other's sensations.
But this we cannot do. If I am wounded I feel pain,
but you feel none ; while if you are wounded you feel
pain, but I don't. Your pain is to me absolutely

510 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

nothing, just as mine is absolutely nothing to you ;
absolutely nothing, that is, on the supposition that we
are merely sensational creatures, that sensation, and
sensation alone, is what we have been originally en-
dowed with. The whole animated universe may be
riotous with enjoyment, or may be plunged in the
most agonising torment; but all this is nothing to
the separate individuals who compose it. Each of
them can be occupied with nothing but its own sen-
sations. None of them can transcend its own par-
ticular feelings, because no creature can feel any
pains or any pleasures except its own. So much
in explanation of what I mean by saying that all
sensation is necessarily individual or particular.

18. I have now to speak of the ethics which are
founded on the psychology of sensation. It will
conduce to distinctness if we regard these ethics as
twofold. There is, first, a very simple system which
arises when we keep in view the particularity of sen-
sation as I have just explained it to you ; and there is,
secondly, a very confused system which arises when we
lose sight, as the sensational psychologists did, of the
fact referred to. We shall confine our attention at
present to the first of these ethical systems. It is, as
I have said, extremely simple and intelligible, and al-
though exceedingly defective in point of truth, nothing
can be more perfect than the logical consistency with
the psychological principles on which it is founded.
The ethical system in its simplest form which arises

NOVEMBER 1S61. -511

out of the sensational psychology is that which is now
to engage our attention.

19. By ethics are meant generally those principles
and practical rules of conduct which move and guide
us in the pursuit of that which we esteem to be right
and good, and in the avoidance of that which we
esteem to be wrong and evil. Now to a mere sensa-
tional creature (and such the sensational psychology
represents man to be), what alone can be esteemed
good and right ? Obviously nothing, except its own
sensational pleasure. And what alone to such a
being can be esteemed evil and wrong? Obviously
nothing, except its own sensational pain. The sole
end of its existence, the sole rule and principle of its
conduct, must therefore be the attainment of sensual
enjoyment, and the avoidance of sensual suffering;
for pleasure naturally allures, and pain naturally re-
pels the whole animated creation, and here there is
no principle to counteract in any degree the allure-
ment and the repulsion. Here the only duty, the
only obligation, is to enjoy. Here sensational happi-
ness is equivalent to an approving conscience, while
a disapproving conscience is identical with sensational
misery. And here, too, our own pleasures and pains
must be pursued and shunned by each of us in total
disregard of the claims and feelings of our fellow-men.
These necessarily go for nothing, for, as I have shown
you, our sensations (and we are supposed to have
nothing but sensations), our sensations can give us

512 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,

no sense of theirs, no sense of their felicity or wretch-
edness. In such a case it is each man for himself
and his own interests, not because he dislikes the
happiness and desires the misery of his fellows, but
because he has, and can have, absolutely no percep-
tion of them. He has a perception only of his own
weal and of his own woe. The one of these he courts,
and the other he wards off under the irresistible com-
pulsion of his nature. And this nature, the only
nature which he has, assures him that he is doing-
right in pursuing the one at all hazards, and wrong
in failing at all hazards to eschew the other.

20. It is obvious that these ethics are scarcely en-
titled to the name of a mwal scheme ; and it cannot
be maintained for a moment that they are applicable
to man in his rational maturity. But it is only be-
cause man is not a mere sensational creature that
they are not applicable to him. Admit with the
sensational psychologists that he is this, and these
certainly are the only ethics adapted to his condition.
They stand in a relation of perfect consistency with
the psychology which is their groundwork.

21. Yet, untrue as these ethics are in the main,
they present one side on which we may, perhaps, win
from them some degree of truth. Let us suppose
that man is at first a mere sensational creature, and
that his reason and other qualities, although original,
do not show themselves until a later period in his

NOVEMBER 1861. 513

career; on that supposition I conceive that these
ethics would apply to man, would, indeed, be the
only rule and motive of his actions in his early con-
dition, and prior to the development of these subse-
quent manifestations. Now this is by no means an
absurd or untrue supposition ; on the contrary, it is
certain that man is sensitive to pleasure and pain
before his reason comes into play. In such circum-
stances I hold that these selfish ethics are the only
true, the only possible ethics of his condition. There
can be no objection to our making man commence his
career as a mere sensational creature, provided we
allow due weight and authority to the principles, no
less original, which he afterwards develops. This is
the position taken up by the celebrated philosopher
Hobbes. He regards sensation as man's earliest mani-
festation; and this fact, for a fact it certainly is,
seems to me to justify some of his apparently para-
doxical opinions. For instance Hobbes asserts that
man's natural condition is a state of mutual warfare
and aggression, and this assertion has drawn down
upon his head a large measure of obloquy and indig-
nation. But it is precisely equivalent to saying that
man's natural condition is a state of susceptibility to
pleasure and to pain; because this susceptibility, if
unchecked by any other principle, will necessarily
strive after a monopoly of enjoyment, and this
struggle will necessarily bring people into collision
with each other. If, therefore, by our natural condi-
tion, Hobbes means our early and sensational condi-
2 K

514 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.

tion, it appears to me that a good ground of defence
may be obtained for his averment that the natural
and primitive state of mankind is a helium omnium
contra omnes. Hobbes's error lay in his not paying
sufficient regard to the provision I just mentioned.
He does not allow due weight to the principles which
man develops subsequently to his sensational mani-
festations.

22. On the whole, then, we may conclude that the
sensational ethics in the simple form in which we
have been viewing them, are true in regard to man
in his early and mere sensational state. This truth,
however, must be admitted to be rather ideal than
real, for, except in early infancy, it is only in the
abstract or ideally that we regard man as a merely
sensational being. Eeason soon comes into play, and
then the ethics of sensation lose their truth and cease
to be applicable to his nature.

LECTUKE ON IMAGINATION,

1847.

1. Before entering on the consideration of the re-
presentative faculty, or what is usually termed imagi-
nation, I shall in to-day's lecture discuss a somewhat
singular opinion advanced by Mr Stewart regarding
this faculty, and which such of you as are acquainted
with his works must be familiar with, and may have
been puzzled by. I allude to his opinion that " the
exercise of the Imagination (I use his own words) is
always accompanied with a belief that the objects of
the imagination exist." I propose to consider how
far this doctrine is consistent with truth, and to what
extent and upon what grounds it may be rationally
vindicated. I shall first refer to the passage in which
Mr Stewart propounds his opinion. He commences
by stating the counter-opinion of Dr Eeid, who holds
that " imagination is attended with no belief in the
existence of its object." ('Elements,' i. 140-43.)
Mr Stewart is at some pains to illustrate his opinion

516 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847.

by pointing out a variety of ocular deceptions, in
which, although we know that we are imposed upon
by the appearances of things, we may nevertheless
be said to believe for the moment that the things are
as they appear. But he has merely illustrated his
opinion, he has not attempted to vindicate or estab-
lish it upon rational grounds, or to explain it by
means of any law of our intelligence. These grounds
and this law I shall now endeavour to lay before you ;
for Mr Stewart's opinion, singular and somewhat par-
adoxical though it be, appears to me to be founded
in truth, and to be susceptible of a satisfactory ex-
planation. I think that Dr Eeid's opinion may also
be justified ; in short, that the doctrines of the two
philosophers on this point may be reconciled with
one another by means of the principle which I am
about to point out to you.

2. In proceeding to point out to you the grounds
on which I think the soundness of this opinion may
be upheld, I commence by remarking that there is a
particular circumstance connected with the exercise
of Perception and of Imagination to which your at-
tention must be directed. This circumstance I would
call the law of contrast between perception and
imagination, and between the objects of perception
and the objects of imagination. This law may be
either present or absent when these faculties are at
work. When this law is present, and when the
imagination is at work, then I hold with Dr Eeid

LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847. 517

that the objects of the imagination are accompanied
with no belief in their reality ; for we believe these
objects to be unreal, we pronounce them to be unreal
by means of the comparison which we draw between
them and the more permanent and real objects of
perception. In this case, that is to say, when the
law of contrast is supposed to be present, or when
comparison between perceived objects and imagined
objects is drawn, Dr Keid is quite right in holding
that imagination is attended with no belief in the
existence of its object. But this law of contrast is
not always present ; far from it, it is sometimes, it is
frequently, perhaps it is in most cases, absent when
the imagination is at work; in which case I hold
that its objects, not being contrasted or in any way
compared with those of perception, are accompanied
at any rate with no disbelief in their existence. And
being accompanied with no disbelief in their exist-
ence, I think we may go a step further, and say with
Mr Stewart that these objects, the objects of the
imagination, are accompanied with a belief, moment-
ary though it be, of their existence. It appears to
me that though the belief may not be of an express
or positive character, still there is a tacit and vir-
tual belief in the real existence of these imaginary
objects when the law which I have called that of
contrast between perception and imagination is not
in force.

3. To illustrate more fully the effect which the

518 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847.

absence of this law would have in bringing about a
belief in the reality of the objects of the imagination,
let us suppose two cases in which this law must ne-
cessarily be absent. To suppose two such cases, we
must conceive two individuals, the one of whom pos-
sesses imagination to the entire exclusion of percep-
tion, and the other perception to the entire exclusion
of imagination. Let us suppose that the one man has
the faculty of external perception, but is totally des-
titute of the faculty of imagination, or of the power
of forming representations of objects not actually
present to his senses. No imaginary form, we shall
say, ever crossed or ever can cross this person's brain.
And let us suppose that the other man has the
faculty of imagination vigorously developed ; that he
lives in a reverie of vivid pictures, but is altogether
devoid of the external senses. The phantasmagorias
of the imagination are his, but he is cut off by
an impassable barrier from all communication with
what we call real things.

It is obvious that these two faculties being, ac-
cording to our supposition, the property of differ-
ent individuals, no contrast or comparison can be
instituted between them and their respective objects.
Here the law of contrast must necessarily be absent.
Now, this law being absent, I am of opinion that the
man of imagination would hold his world to be just
as real as the man of perception would hold his to
be. Neither of them would have any disbelief in the
existence of the objects before them ; and where no

LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847. 519

disbelief dwells, I conceive that a vital, though it
may be an obscure belief, is always present.

In the first place, then, let us consider more particu-
larly the case of the man limited to perception ; and
for simplicity's sake, let us suppose him limited to
the perceptions of sight. An object is before him, St
Paul's Cathedral ; he sees it. Now, suppose we ask
him whether he believes in the existence of this
object, whether he believes it to be real ? To this
query it is plain that he could return no answer
which would properly meet the question. For before
a man can say that he believes a thing to be real, he
must be able to conceive something unreal ; but this
is what the person under consideration is, according
to the supposition, unable to do. But, nevertheless,
his very perplexity and his inability to understand
and answer the question as we could answer it, would
prove that he virtually believed in the existence of
the object with a most unhesitating faith. He would
say simply: There St Paul's is; I see it. If you
choose to call that statement a belief on my part
that it is a real object, I have no objection to your
doing so, only it appears to me to be a circuitous
mode of stating a very simple truth. I hold that
this man's belief would be all the more vital and
profound because he would not, properly speaking,
know what belief meant.

4. In the second place, I now turn to the man
whom we supposed to be living exclusively in the

520 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847.

world of imagination, and I address myself to him
with a view of ascertaining what kind or degree of
faith he must necessarily attach to the reality of the
pictures that come before him. We shall suppose
that these representations are very vivid, but that in
the formation of them he does not exert any power
of will; that they come and go like images in a
dream or in a waking reverie, independently of all
control. We shall suppose then, as in the former
case, that a representation of St Paul's Cathedral
arises before this man's imagination, and that the
question, Do you believe that this object is a real
object, that it really exists ? is put to him. The man
would be perplexed just as much as the other indi-
vidual was, and his answer would be of precisely the
same character. He would not, strictly speaking,
know what belief meant, because he would have no
notion of unbelief, the law of contrast between the
real and the unreal, between imagination and per-
ception, being altogether absent from his mind. But
he would simply say, There the object is, I have it
vividly before me, I apprehend it distinctly; and
in speaking thus he would show that he had just as
little doubt, and just as vital a belief in the existence
of the object, as the other man had who was limited
to the exercise of external perception.

5. In both of these cases, then, the belief in
the real existence of the objects would be unhesi-
tating and profound. The man of perception

LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847. 521

could not disbelieve the existence of the objects of
sense, because, never having had any of the less
substantial objects of the imagination before him,
having no conception of these, he could not be
betrayed into the scepticism of thinking that the
object before him might possibly be no more real
than they, and hence, not being able to disbelieve the
existence of the objects of sense, indeed not being
able to form any conception of disbelief, he would
necessarily believe in their existence.

Again, the man of imagination could not disbelieve
the existence of the objects of his one faculty, because,
never having had any of the more substantial ob-
jects of sense before him, never having contrasted
or compared the objects of imagination with those of
sense, he could not be betrayed into the scepticism
of thinking that the objects of the imagination were
unreal and precarious, while those of sense were real
and permanent; and hence, not being able to dis-
believe the existence of the objects of the imagina-
tion, not being able any more than the other man to
form any conception of disbelief, he would necessarily
believe in the existence of the objects of the imagina-
tion, just as his neighbour believed in the existence
of the objects of perception.

6. Now, the same thing which we have supposed
to take place in two separate minds, may take place
in one mind. We supposed one mind endowed with
perception alone, and another mind endowed with

522 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847.

imagination alone, and no contrast between the
objects of these two faculties being upon such a
supposition possible, our conclusion was that the
objects in both cases would be believed by those two
minds to stand on a footing of equality in regard to
their real existence. Now, let us suppose that these
two faculties, perception and imagination, are pos-
sessed by one and the same mind, and that the law
of contrast is absent or inoperative, that no compari-
son takes place, and I maintain that the result will
be precisely the same as it was in the case of the
two separate minds. The objects of imagination
will stand on the same footing with the objects of
perception in regard to our belief in their existence.
When we actually see an object, and do not contrast
this object even in the remotest manner with some
imaginary object, we cannot, strictly speaking, be said
either to believe or disbelieve in its existence ; but we
certainly do virtually, though perhaps not very con-
sciously, believe, and vitally believe, in its existence.
In the same way, when we are plunged in a reverie,
and a succession of objects, i.e., visionary pictures,
arises before our imagination, which we do not con-
trast even by the remotest implication with any of
the objects of sense, we cannot, strictly speaking, be
said either to believe or disbelieve in their existence ;
but I agree with Mr Stewart in holding that we do
virtually, though not very consciously, believe in
their existence, and they are really present to our
minds. For if the law of contrast between perception

LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847. 523

and imagination be entirely inoperative, as it often
is, it is certain that we have no positive or conscious
disbelief in the existence of these objects ; and, hav-
ing no disbelief in their reality, I think we are
entitled to say, without stretching the doctrine too
far, that we actually believe in their existence, and
in their real presence to the mind, though this be-
lief is but momentary, and is constantly broken in
upon by the operation of the law of contrast between
perception and imagination. You will of course
find it impossible to verify the truth of this doctrine
by setting yourselves voluntarily to call up imaginary
scenes, and then by appealing to your consciousness
to ascertain whether you believe in their reality or
not. Such an attempt would necessarily defeat
itself, because, in endeavouring to banish all contrast
between the objects of sense and the objects of im-
agination, you would of necessity call into play the
very law of contrast which you were desirous of sus-
pending. But let me ask you whether, even when
you have been sitting in this room, imaginary pic-
tures of your own homes and friends have not
sometimes arisen before you ? and let me further
ask you, whether your minds were then impressed
with a distinct disbelief in the reality of these
scenes ? You will perhaps say that had you been
asked whether you believed the scenes to be real,
you would at once have answered, No ; of course you
would, because the spell of your reverie would have
been broken, the law of contrast would have come

524 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847.

into instantaneous operation, you would have con-
trasted the objects of sense with those of the im-
agination, and out of the comparison you would have
affirmed the former to be real, the latter unreal.
But the question is, Were you distinctly sensible of
the unreality, did you disbelieve in the real presence
of the objects when the objects were flitting before
your mental eye ? If I may judge from my own
experience, I think your answer must be that you
entertained no disbelief in the presence and reality of
the objects. I hope, indeed, that in this room you
have seldom indulged in such reveries ; but in spots
better fitted for your day-dreams, by your own fire-
sides, on the banks of a running stream, have you
never lived for a time in an imaginary landscape and
among imaginary faces, entertaining at the same
time no clear disbelief in the reality of such scenes ?
If you have yielded yourselves up to such trains of
thought, and if you have not been impressed every
instant with a conviction of their unreality, with a
belief in the non-existence of all that came before
you, then I conceive that you had a virtual and a
vital, though not a very distinct or conscious, belief
in the existence and in the reality of the objects in
the contemplation of which you were absorbed.

7. I think, then, in conclusion, that you must be-
come converts to Mr Stewart's opinion that the exer-
cise of the imagination is in certain circumstances,
and under certain conditions, accompanied with the

LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847. 525

belief that its objects exist. Mr Stewart says that
the exercise of the imagination is always accompanied
with this belief. But it appears to me that this is
the case only when there is a total suspension of all
contrast between perception and imagination. You
cannot bring about this suspension by any voluntary
effort, but I think you may without difficulty catch
yourselves in cases where it has been spontaneously
suspended; those cases, I mean, which are called
Eeverie. Then ask yourselves whether, when you
were plunged in your reverie, you positively dis-
believed in the existence of the objects that were
passing before you. If you find, as I think you will
find, that you did not positively disbelieve in that
existence, then you must virtually have believed in
it. This is what I understand Mr Stewart to con-
tend for; and I think that his somewhat singular
opinion may be explained and upheld in a satis-
factory manner by means of the absence or suspen-
sion of the law of contrast between perception and
imagination, a law the presence of which destroys
our waking dreams, and teaches us that the world of
perception is more real than the world of imagina-
tion. We may sum up these observations, then, by
remarking that both of our philosophers are right in
their opinions on this subject, although their opinions
are opposed to each other ; that Mr Stewart appears
to be right in maintaining that imagined objects are
always believed to have a real existence, that is,
they are always believed to have a real existence so

526 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1847.

long as they are not in any way contrasted or com-
pared with perceived objects; and that Dr Reid is
also right in maintaining that imagined objects are
never believed to have a real existence, that is, they
are never believed to have a real existence when we
compare or contrast them, even in the slightest
degree, with perceived objects. It is in this way
that I would reconcile the opinions of the two
philosophers respecting the belief which the one
of them attaches, and the other of them denies, to
the existence of imaginary objects.

LECTURE ON IMAGINATION.

1848.

Poetical composition is usually and rightly regarded
as the intellectual province over which the imagina-
tion more particularly presides. The possession of
this faculty is essential to the enjoyment as well as to
the production of poetry. When developed in a high
degree, it renders him who is gifted with it a poet,
while it enables those who possess it in a lower degree
to appreciate and relish the strains which they could
not have themselves composed.

Now, in order to reach some decisive principle by
which we may determine when the imagination is
exercised properly and when it is exercised perversely,
I must raise a somewhat singular question, a question
which you may at first sight regard as extravagant.
But, perhaps, with a little patience we may be led by
our question to find what we want, viz., a standard
which shall decide between the right and the wrong
employment of the imagination as it displays itself

528 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1848.

in poetical creation. Looking at poetry, then, in its
abstract and absolute character, looking at what we
may call the spirit of poetry as it exists, not incar-
nated in this or that particular composition, but as a
genial power which enlightens the intellect and the
heart both of the poet himself and of those who lis-
ten to his strains ; looking at poetry under this point
of view, I ask, putting the question in the form of a
bold, brief, and strong antithesis, Does man make
poetry, or does poetry make man ? Is the human
mind the original source to which poetry may be
traced as to its fountainhead ? or is not rather poetry
itself the fountainhead from whence flow the eternal
waters which invigorate and purify, and in some mea-
sure constitute our souls ? Does the human mind
fabricate for itself the idea of the beautiful and the
idea of the sublime ? or do not rather these ideas
fashion and fabricate the human mind ? Does man
derive his poetical inspiration from himself ? or does
he derive himself as a poet from the everlasting poetry
of Him who has sown the sky with stars and the
earth with flowers, who is Himself the substance of
the true, the beautiful, and the good ?

This question may appear mystical and obscure.
Let me then explain myself by a reference to a still
more general question, a question in regard to the
fundamental nature of the human mind itself. All
the accounts that can be rendered as to the nature of
the human mind may be generalised into the two fol-
lowing theories : they may rather be said to generalise

LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1848. 529

themselves, before the survey of the reflective student,
into the two following theories. The first theory holds
that the human mind is something, the creation of
which is finished when a man is born. The mind,
according to this theory, may be said to be thrown
off complete, in so far as its existence is concerned,
at the birth of the individual. It is, moreover, sup-
posed to be endowed with certain faculties by means
of which it subsequently acquires all its knowledge.
This knowledge, however, is not viewed as the staple
of the mind's existence ; it is not regarded as itself
the mind, but as an adventitious acquisition which
the mind might or might not have possessed. The
mind, qud existent, is supposed to be as much a
mind whether it be invested with this knowledge or
not, just as a man is as much an existing man whether
he be clothed or naked. This theory, in short, dis-
tinguishes between the existence of the mind and the
knowledge appertaining to the mind. It gives the
preference and the priority to the existence. The
knowledge it regards as a secondary and posterior
formation. The mind is as much an existing mind
without this knowledge as it is with it. The mind
of a savage, according to this doctrine, is as much an
existing mind as the mind of a Newton, a Milton, or
a Chalmers. The theory thus shortly described may
be termed the psychological theory of the human
mind. We may remark farther, that this theory,
in estimating the relation between the mind and its
knowledge, regards the mind as the steady and the
2 L

530 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1848.

permanent ; its knowledge as the temporary and the
fluctuating. It teaches that the mind is the moulder
of knowledge, and not that knowledge is the moulder
of the mind.

Opposed to this doctrine stands what we would
call the genuine metaphysical theory of the human
mind. According to this theory, knowledge is not
the accident and appendage, it is the essence and the
existence of the mind. This doctrine is precisely the
reverse of the preceding one. There our mental
existence, our intellectual constitution, is laid down
as the basis of knowledge ; here knowledge is laid
down as the basis of our mental existence, as the
maker, under God, of our mental constitution. I
am convinced that such among you as may intend to
hereafter prosecute your speculative researches in a
profound and zealous spirit, and to study philosophy
both in itself and in its history, — I am convinced that
you must build your labours upon the distinction
now brought before you.

Whichever of the theories you may yourselves adopt,
it is essential to the prosecution of your philosophical
studies that you should be made aware of the existence
of the distinction between them. The one of these
theories regards knowledge or ideas as the essence of
the mind ; the other of them regards the mind as some-
thing which may exist destitute of all knowledge or
ideas. The former we may call the metaphysical, the
latter the psychological theory of the mind. This dis-
tinction lies at the very root of philosophy, and by

LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1848. 531

keeping it in view we obtain a clue which enables us to
understand and appreciate the arm and the works of
true speculative thinkers, from Plato downwards. We
mistake the views of these philosophers if we suppose
that they regarded knowledge as the offspring of the
human mind, or ideas as its modifications ; on the
contrary, they regarded the mind as the offspring of
an objective knowledge, a knowledge which existed
prior to its existence. They held that ideas moulded
and modified the mind, not that it moulded or modi-
fied them. For myself, I am disposed to adopt the
second of these theories, for if we once accept the
psychological theory, we shall never be able com-
pletely to eradicate either from our own minds or
from those of others the sophistry and the scepticism
which for ages have bewildered the world. But
the metaphysical theory carries us triumphant over
every difficulty.

As an illustration of the difference between the
two theories, and of the mode in which sophistry
and scepticism are overthrown by the one theory
while they are all-powerful against the other, let me
appeal to the well-known distinction between right
and wrong. You have a mind, says the sophist, a
mind to begin with, and this mind of yours makes
the distinction between right and wrong. But it
does not follow that a distinction which your mind
makes is an embodiment of absolute, necessary, and
immutable truth. The distinction between right
and wrong is doubtless a distinction for you. But

532 LECTURE OX IMAGINATION, 1848.

it does not follow that right and wrong are abso-
lutely and in themselves distinct. In short, you
cannot conclude an objective and divine, and abso-
lutely true distinction from the existence of a mere
subjective and human distinction. It is thus that the
sceptic has in all ages endeavoured to confound moral
distinctions. And the terms of the psychological
theory afford us no grounds upon which his argument
may be successfully resisted and answered. But
what is the answer ? The answer is this : I have,
properly speaking, no mind to begin with. I have
no mind before the distinction between right and
wrong is revealed to me. My mind exists subse-
quently to this revelation. At any rate, I acquire
my mind, if not after, yet in the very act which
brings before me the distinction. The distinction
exists, it exists as an immutable institution of God
prioi* to the existence of our minds. And it is the
knowledge of this distinction which forms the prime
constituent, not of our mental acquisitions, but of
our mental existence. Extinguish in a man's mind
the distinction between good and evil, and you
not merely extinguish his mind's knowledge, you
extinguish a large portion, if not the whole, of his
mind's existence. I shall have occasion to dwell
more fully on this doctrine hereafter. Meanwhile I
would just request any one who is not altogether
satisfied with our views to consider, and to consider
well, what he means by the mind acquiring a know-
ledge of the distinction between good and evil ; and

LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1848. 533

then to ask himself candidly this question, Whether
a knowledge of this distinction be not in his estima-
tion essential to the very existence of the mind which
he yet endeavours to suppose in existence previous
to the knowledge in question ? I hold that a mind
which has no knowledge of the distinction between
right and wrong, is not a mind at all in any intel-
ligible sense. I hold that it is the knowledge of
the distinction which makes the mind, and not the
mind which makes the distinction and the know-
ledge of the distinction. Now this doctrine affords
a complete answer to the sceptic's cavils against the
immutable truth of moral distinctions. Our mind,
says the sceptic, makes the distinction between right
and wrong ; we have therefore no decisive guarantee
for the absolute truth of the distinction ; it depends
on the existence of our minds. It cannot be shown
to have an objective and independent validity. I
answer, No ; it is, on the contrary, the distinction,
God's distinction, between right and wrong which
makes our minds, which converts blind instincts into
rational aims ; the objective validity, the immutable
truth of the distinction, is therefore indefeasibly
guaranteed. The existence of our minds depends on
and follows the existence of the distinction. The
existence of the distinction is thus secured as an
absolute and invariable, an inflexible truth. It is
the prior, the steady, the permanent, and the inde-
pendent. We are the posterior, the plastic, and the
fluctuating. And our fluctuations cease, that is, our

534 LECTUEE OX IMAGINATION, 184S.

minds exist with a veritable existence, just in pro-
portion as we accommodate ourselves to the standard
distinction; while, on the contrary, our fluctuations
increase, our minds lose their very existence, just in
proportion as we endeavour to accommodate to our-
selves the standard difference between right and
wrong. That is the foundation, I conceive, on which
all true ethical theory must be based.

But without attempting to develop these views in
a detailed form at present, I would merely remark,
that the doctrine of the human mind which I am
disposed to adopt is this, expressed briefly and anti-
thetically it is this : It is not man's mind which puts
him in possession of knowledge, but it is knowledge
which puts him in possession of a mind. Instead of
making mind the radical, and knowledge and ideas
the derivative, as is usually done, I would make
knowledge and ideas the radical, and mind the deri-
vative. In making knowledge and ideas the basis
and the constituent of the mind, we are dealing with
facts of the existence of which we are assured, we
are keeping within the limits of a prudent and cir-
cumspect induction. But in making mind the basis
and upholder of knowledge, we are dealing with we
know not what, a phantom, an abstraction, which
not only eludes our research, but which leads us
astray into a wilderness thickly set with sceptical
snares and sophistical pitfalls.

Taking our stand, then, on the general doctrine
that knowledge under the Divine appointment is the

LECTURE OX IMAGINATION, 1848. 535

maker and upholder of the human mind, and repudi-
ating the converse doctrine, which views knowledge
as altogether subordinate to the mind ; maintaining
that man acquires his mind by means of knowledge,
and not his knowledge by means of mind ; we now
return to the consideration of poetry, and we ask
what view are we to take of that access of intellectual
power which is termed poetical inspiration ? of those
ideas of beauty and sublimity which are the pillars
of poetical art ? It is obvious that, in harmony with
the preceding remarks, we must regard this inspira-
tion and these ideas as that which produces the
poetical mind, as that which engenders the inspira-
tion and the ideas. The ideas of the beautiful and
the sublime, these are the prior elements. The
poetical mind is a subsequent and derivative forma-
tion. The inspiration proceeds not from the man
himself, it comes from a higher and more authorita-
tive source. The man himself owes his existence as
a poet unto it; it does not owe its existence unto
him. We therefore reply, in answer to our original
question, that it is poetry which makes the man, and
not the man who makes poetry.

Should the critic here interfere, and tell us that
this is an extravagant and untenable doctrine, we
reply that at any rate we have Homer, the father of
the epic, and Milton, his illustrious compeer, on our
side of the question. If Homer regarded himself as
the original source of his own -poetry, what intelli-
gible sense can be attached to his invocation, Mrjviv

536 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1848.

aeiSe Geo. (Sing, 0 goddess, the wrath) f I insist upon
taking these words literally, and they certainly indi-
cate that "the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle"
regarded himself as the mere mouthpiece which was
to give utterance in immortal strains to the inspira-
tion that came from a higher quarter and took pos-
session of his soul. Then what shall we say to the
more elaborate invocation with which Milton opens
up to us the sublimities of ' Paradise Lost ' ? If the
poet be not a hypocrite and a deceiver (and who has
ever dared to bring forward such a charge ?), this in-
vocation is clearly an acknowledgment that it is not
to himself that he looks for the inspiration which is
to support him in the accomplishment of his great
enterprise.

" Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of Chaos. Or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God ; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly Thou, 0 Spirit that dost prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st ; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like, sat'st brooding on the vast abyss,

LECTURE OX IMAGINATION, 1848. 537

And mad'st it pregnant : What in me is dark,
Illumine ; what is low, raise and support ;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men."

Having thus explained our doctrine, and having
seen it corroborated by the testimony of the greatest
of poets, I proceed to consider what ground or cri-
terion this doctrine affords us for determining where
the poet exercises his imagination properly, and where
he exercises it perversely. If the poet's inspiration
be a divine derivative, if his ideas of beauty and
sublimity be not the indigenous produce of his own
mind ; but if his mind be, on the contrary, a product
resulting from these ideas, does not this impose upon
his imagination a stringent obligation to keep aloof all
the promptings of his mere subjective carnal nature
while exercising his lofty art ? If he be the high
priest of nature, if God has anointed him with power,
what right has he to carry forth into that service the
pictures of a sensual soul, or the passions of a fleshly
heart ? The poet sins against the genius he is en-
dowed with whenever he allows the subjective cur-
rent of licentious feeling to overflow the boundaries
of his objective inspiration. It is not, however,
necessary that the feelings should be licentious or
immoral to render them amenable to condemnation.
That no doubt aggravates the perversion; but it is
at all times a most dangerous thing for a poet to
draw upon mere subjective feeling for the purpose
of giving zest to his descriptions. The feelings to

538 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1848.

which the poet gives utterance may be altogether
unobjectionable in themselves, and yet their intro-
duction may have the effect of ruining his poetry in
the estimation of all competent judges. So delicate
a thing is poetical composition, that a poet is almost
sure to mar the effect of his best creations whenever
he attempts to mix up mere subjective feeling with
the objective ideas of beauty and sublimity which
are imparting their own tenderness and their own
grandeur to his compositions. As an instance of
this, let me read to you the following passage from
Lord Byron, descriptive of the Cataract of Velino : —

' ' The roar of waters ! — from the headlong height
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice ;
The fall of waters ! rapid as the light
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss ;
The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss,
And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat
Of their great agony, wrung out from this
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet

That guard the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

" And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,
Is an eternal April to the ground,
Making it all one emerald : — how profound
The gulf ! and how the giant element
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent

With his fierce footsteps, yield in Chasms a fearful vent.

" To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
More like the fountain of an infant sea
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
Of a new world, than only thus to be
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,
With many windings, through the vale : — Look back !

LECTURE OX IMAGINATION, 1848. 539

Lo ! where it comes like an eternity,
As if to sweep down all things in its track,
Charming the eye with dread, — a matchless cataract,

" Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge,
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,
Like Hope upon a deathbed, and unworn
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
By the distracted waters, bears serene
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn :
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,

Love watching Madness with unalterable mien."

The two similitudes to which I object in this de-
scription are, first, the iris or rainbow, which is repre-
sented as sitting amidst the infernal surges like Hope
v.pon a deathbed. Let us consider this resemblance.
There is certainly no fault to be found with it on the
score of its morality; it is calculated to be solemn
and impressive. But it appears to me to be incon-
gruous and out of place. There is no analogy or simil-
itude between the scene here presented to our imagi-
nation and the picture of hope upon a deathbed.
The agitation of these distracted waters is the agita-
tion of overpowering life, and not the trouble of death
either still or convulsed. Hope upon a deathbed is
no doubt a radiant crown, whether it encircles the
dying brows of him whose last hour has struck, or
the foreheads of his weeping friends ; but that is a
peaceful though a mournful scene, it is a picture
bearing no resemblance to this frenzied flood ; or if
it be not a peaceful scene, if the passions of anguish,
like those tumultuous waters, boil up around this bed

540 LECTURE ON IMAGINATION, 1848.

of death, then the poet's similitude is lost, for, unlike
the steady Iris to which he likens her, Hope will in
these circumstances, for a time at least, be extin-
guished in despair.

Nor do I think that the poet is more happy in his
efforts where he again speaks of this Iris

" Resembling, 'inid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. "

I object to this similitude on the same grounds on
which I objected to the former one. This Iris does
not resemble Love watching Madness with unalter-
able mien: no two things were ever more unlike.
Our feelings, mine at least, revolt against the associa-
tion. The poet has here attempted to stimulate him-
self and us to entertain feelings which the situation
does not of itself suggest. These similitudes are not
rooted in genuine inspiration. Their beauty is a
spurious beauty: they are specimens of the false
sublime. Here the poet has trusted to the earthly
and not to the celestial impulse.

The exercise of Lord Byron's imagination is, to my
mind, stained throughout with vices of this nature.
His best passages are often sullied with mortal stains,
because he refused to acknowledge the obligations
due to the genius of which he was the depository.
Listen to his voice amid the thunderstorm: —

" The sky is changed ! and such a change ! 0 Night
And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman. "

" As is the light of a dark eye in woman ! " Oh

LECTURE OX IMAGINATION, 1848. 541

that that had been away ! We can all admire dark
eyes in woman, but we do not want to be called upon
to admire them now. Here we are, in the heart
of a thunderstorm among the mountains; the Alps
are wild with obstreperous enjoyment, sympathy
with the exultation of the hills, glee triumphant over
terror, and terror bounding buoyant on the waves of
glee. These are the ruling spirits of the time. What
have woman's eyes to do with a scene like this ?

The true poet's motto must ever be, " Odi profanum
vulgus et arceo." But in assuming this badge he
merely dissevers himself from the tastes of the licen-
tious multitude. He links himself all the closer to
our essential and universal humanity, and his success,
however limited his popularity may be for a time, is
ultimately secure.

LETTEE TO SIR W. HAMILTON

(Not Sent).

St Andrews, 18th Oct. 1851.

My dear Sir William, — There is an ambiguity
or inconsistency in your doctrine of " presentative
knowledge " which I have often intended to speak to
you about, and request an explanation of. You say,
Eeid, p. 805, " In a presentative or immediate cogni-
tion there is one sole object" What is this one sole
object ? Our organism, you answer. From which it
of course follows that everything beyond our organism
is a mediate object of cognition. This is indeed ex-
pressly admitted. " The primary qualities of things
external to our organism we do not perceive — i.e.,
immediately knoiv" p. 881. And yet, in the face of
that statement, I read, p. 810, " The primary qualities
of matter or body, now and here — that is, in proximate
relation to our organs — are objects of immediate cog-
nition to the natural realists." These two statements
are absolutely contradictory and irreconcilable. Of
course, the primary qualities, when " in proximate

LETTER TO SIR W. HAMILTON. 543

relation to our organs," are " external to our organ-
ism," and are, therefore, according to passage in
p. 881, not immediately known ; and yet, according
to passage in p. 810, they are " objects of immediate
cognition to the natural realist." Does not this re-
quire some amendment ? The truth is, that your dis-
tinction of presentative and representative knowledge
is no distinction at all, both species of cognition being
equally presentative and equally representative. Both
in perception and in imagination the sole immediate
object is our own organism ; the only difference being
that in perception the immediate object refers to, or
implies, a present external object not immediately
known; while in imagination the immediate object
refers to, or implies, an absent external object not im-
mediately known. Is not that your doctrine ? What,
then, becomes of the distinction between presentation
and representation, between perception and imagina-
tion, if in both cases both a near and a remote object
are or may be involved ? You expressly state that
the sole immediate object in perception is the organ-
ism ; all that lies beyond is mediate. The organism
is also the sole immediate object in imagination ;
all that lies beyond is mediate. How, then, can
these two powers be discriminated as presentative
(immediate) and representative (mediate)?

The argument by which you find an immediate
non-ego in the organism I do not meddle with at
present. But it seems to me that this argument, if
sound, would be sufficient to establish your natural

544 LETTER TO SIR W. HAMILTON.

realism, without complicating the case with the dis-
tinction of preservative and representative know-
ledge, a distinction which seems to me to be unten-
able as you put it, and which, at any rate, requires
some redding up at your hands. It is also very mis-
leading; for I believe that unwary readers of Note
B may be of opinion that you advocate an immediate
knowledge of external objects beyond the organism,
and are thus a champion of common sense.

BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING.

Joseph Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, one of the
most celebrated and productive philosophers of Ger-
many, was born at Leonberg in Wiirtemberg in 1775.
He was the son of a country clergyman. Such was
the precocity of his genius, that he entered the Uni-
versity of Tubingen in his fifteenth year. Here he
formed a close intimacy with Hegel, afterwards his
great rival in philosophy, although, in principle,
their systems are very much alike. At the age
of seventeen, with the view of taking the highest
honours in philosophy, he published a Latin dis-
sertation on ' The Origin of Evil as laid down in the
third chapter of Genesis.' He remained at Tub-
ingen until 1795, when he published an inaugural
dissertation in theology, entitled 'On Marcion, the
corrector of the Pauline Epistles.' He then went to
Leipsic, where he resided for a short time as tutor to
the Baron von Riedesel. From Leipsic he went to
the University of Jena, where he studied medicine
and philosophy ; the latter under Fichte, the presid-
2 M

546 BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING.

ing genius of the place — a man whose heroic char-
acter raises him as high among the patriots, as his
speculative power does among the philosophers of
his country. Schelling became Fichte's devoted dis-
ciple, and in 1798 he succeeded him as professor of
philosophy at Jena. Here he lectured with great
applause until 1803, when he was invited to fill the
chair of philosophy at Wurzburg. Having been en-
nobled by the King of Bavaria, he removed to Munich
in 1807, and remained there until 1841. During part
of this time he discharged the duties of a professor
in the University of Munich (founded in 1827), and
after Jacobi's death he was appointed president of
the Academy of Sciences. He resided for some time
at Erlangen, where he delivered a course of lectures.
In 1841 he was summoned to the University of Berlin
to lecture against Hegelianism, which was then carry-
ing everything before it. If Hegel's reign is over, it
cannot be affirmed that Schelling had much share in
deposing him. His lectures were generally regarded
as a failure. They combined with the obscurity of
his earlier writings a higher degree of prolixity and
mysticism. Schelling's latter years seem to have
been spent in retirement. He died in 1854. No life
of him, on any extended scale, has as yet appeared.
In his 'Biographia Literaria' (first published in 1817),
Coleridge embodied large extracts from the writings
of Schelling, without any sufficient acknowledgment.
— (See ' Blackwood's Magazine,' March 1840.) This,
however, should be attributed rather to forgetfulness

BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING. 547

or carelessness, than to wilful plagiarism on the part
of the English poet.1

Schelling's writings may be classified as belonging
to five periods. To the first period, 1795-96, belong
— 'On the possibility of a Form of Philosophy in
general;' 'On the Ego as the Principle of Philosophy,
or on the unconditioned in human knowledge ; ' ' Ex-
planations of the Idealism involved in the Theory of
Knowledge ; ' ' Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism.
In these writings he adheres closely to Fichte, who
welcomed him as his best expositor. Later in life
their relations were less amicable. In the second
period, 1797-1801, appeared — 'Ideas towards a Philo-
sophy of Nature' (second edition, 1802); 'On the
World-Soul;' 'First Sketch of a System of the Philo-
sophy of Nature ; ' ' Journal of Speculative Physics ; '
'System of Transcendental Idealism.' During both
of these periods, he also contributed largely to the
'Philosophical Journal' of Fichte and Niethammer.
In the second period he devoted himself more to the
study of nature, and less to the exposition of Fichte.
The third period, 1801-1803, gave birth to ' Exposition
of my System of Philosophy ; ' ' Bruno, a dialogue on
the divine and natural principle of things ; ' ' Lectures
on the Method of Academical Study ; ' ' New Journal

1 In the article referred to, on "The Plagiarisms of S. T. Cole-
ridge," Mr Ferrier gives full and accurate details of a question pos-
sessing not indeed a purely philosophical, but a very remarkable
psychological interest. Schelling himself expresses in his lectures
a view nearly coincident with that taken by Mr Ferrier in this
passage.

548 BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING.

of Speculative Physics.' In the fourth period,
1804-1809, he published a Treatise on 'Philosophy
and Eeligion ; ' ' A Statement of the True Eelation of
the Philosophy of Nature to the Improved Doctrine
of Fichte;' 'On the Eelation of the Eeal and the
Ideal ; ' ' Philosophical Inquiries concerning the
Nature of Human Freedom ;' 'Philosophical Writ-
ings/ first volume. This latter publication (of 1809)
was designed to contain all Schelling's already pub-
lished works, with the addition, it may be supposed,
of many new ones. But it stopped at the first volume,
and contains only a portion of the compositions
enumerated above. The fifth period extended from
1809 to 1854. During this long period, Schelling's
literary activity, which hitherto had been so prolific,
was comparatively in abeyance. That his pen was
still busy his posthumous works testify; but whether
it was that he was discouraged by the reception which
his collected writings had met with, or that he had
misgivings respecting the validity of his system, or
that he was silently labouring to give it greater fin-
ish and completeness, his published contributions to
science during this period of forty-five years were
very small and far between. Of these the most impor-
tant was a ' Critical Preface ' to Beckers's translation
into German of a work by the French philosopher
Cousin. From this preface, the following extract on
the obscurity of the German philosophers is curious
and memorable. It shows how a man's eyes may be
open to faults in others, which he either does not see

BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING. 549

in himself, or seeing, does not choose or is unable to
amend. " The philosophers of Germany," says Schel-
ling, " have been for so long in the habit of philoso-
phising merely among themselves, that by degrees
their thoughts and language have become further and
further removed, even in Germany, from the under-
standing of general readers ; and at length the degree
of this remoteness from common intelligibility has
come almost to be regarded as the measure of philo-
sophic proficiency. Examples of this we hardly
require to adduce. As families who abandon the
intercourse of their fellow-men acquire, in addition
to other disagreeable peculiarities, certain peculiar
modes of expression intelligible only to themselves ;
so have the German philosophers made themselves
remarkable for forms of thought and expression which
are unintelligible to all the world besides. The fact
of their having been repeatedly unsuccessful in their
attempts to spread the knowledge of the Kantian
philosophy beyond Germany — though, indeed, it com-
pelled them to abandon the hope of making them-
selves understood by the natives of other countries —
yet it never led them to conclude that there was
anything wrong either with their philosophy itself,
or with their method of communicating it. On the
contrary, the oftener and the more signally they
failed in their endeavours to disseminate their highly
cherished opinions, the stronger did their conviction
become that philosophy was something which existed
for themselves alone — not considering that to be

550 BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING.

universally intelligible is the primary aim of every
true philosophy — an aim which, though often missed,
ought yet never to be lost sight of, and ought to be
the ruling and guiding principle of every system.
This does not imply that works of speculative thought
are chiefly to be weighed in the critic's scales as mere
exercises of style ; but it does imply that a philosophy
whose contents cannot be made intelligible to every
well-educated people, and expressed in every culti-
vated language, cannot be the true and universal
philosophy." Such were Schelling's words in 1834,
in passing sentence on the speculations generally of
his countrymen. Their severity is not greater than
their truth. Would that Schelling and his compeers
had profited more largely by the advice ! Since
Schelling's death in 1854 a complete edition of his
writings has been published by his son. It is com-
prised in fourteen volumes, and contains many works
now printed for the first time. Of these the principal
are ' Historico-critical Introduction to the Philosophy
of Mythology;' ' The Philosophy of Mythology;' ' The
Philosophy of Eevelation.' This vast theosophic
system fills four large volumes.

In each of the four periods during which Schelling
poured forth so many publications, his philosophy
assumed a different phasis or aspect. It is not pos-
sible, within the limits of this sketch, to give any
account of even the simplest of these varying and
incomplete manifestations. The last and posthumous
form in which the system has appeared, and in which

BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING. 551

the reflective labours of his long life may be supposed
to be summed up, is a work so wide in its range, so
complicated in its details, and so mystical in its tone,
that an intelligible analysis of it is a scarcely prac-
ticable achievement. It may be more instructive, as
well as more practicable, to confine ourselves to a
smaller field — to consider, namely, the main point
at issue between Schelling and some of the leading
philosophers of this country. Perhaps some light
will be thrown on his philosophy, its drift and pur-
pose will perhaps become apparent in our attempt,
not indeed to settle, but to adjust the terms of this
dispute.

It is admitted on all hands, that truth of one kind
or another is the proper aim of philosophy. But
there are two kinds of truth : truth as it exists in
itself, and truth as it exists in relation to us. The
first of these is called technically the unconditioned ;
the latter the conditioned. According to Schelling,
unconditioned truth is the proper object of philosophy.
According to his opponents (of whom Sir W. Hamil-
ton may be cited as the most distinguished), con-
ditioned truth is the only proper and possible object
of philosophy (see Hamilton's Discussions, art. ' The
Philosophy of the Unconditioned:' also page 643).
Such is the precise and primary point at issue between
the two philosophers.

We have now to state and examine the grounds
on which each belligerent respectively supports his
opinion. Hamilton's opinion is grounded on the as-

552 BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING.

sumption that whatever man knows he knows only in
relation, that is, only in relation to his own faculties
of knowledge. He can, therefore, apprehend only
relative or conditioned truth. The unconditioned
(truth in itself) is beyond his grasp. But it is plain
that this argument proves too much ; it proves that
the unconditioned truth is equally beyond the grasp
of Omniscience; because it is surely manifest that
omniscience can know things only in relation to
itself ; and therefore Omniscience is just as incom-
petent as man is to apprehend the unconditioned,
if this must be apprehended out of all relation to
intelligence. If that be the idea of the unconditioned,
Schelling's conception of philosophy must be given up,
and Hamilton's must be accepted. But the surrender
of the one and the acceptance of the other involves
the admission that the truth in itself cannot be known
even by the Supreme reason. That is the reductio
to which Hamilton's argument brings us.

To escape this conclusion, then, we must not un-
derstand the unconditioned as that which is exempt
from all relation ; we must view it as that which stands
in some sort of relation to intelligence. Viewing it
otherwise, we fall into the absurdity touched upon in
the preceding paragraph.

If the truth in itself is not to be regarded as that
which is placed out of all relation to intellect, it
must, no less than the other kind of truth (the uncon-
ditioned), be regarded as that which stands in some
sort of relation to intellect ; so that the distinction

BIOGEAPHY OF SCHELLING. 553

between truth unconditioned and truth conditioned
thus resolves itself into the distinction between truth
in relation to intelligence simply (a7r\a>?), and truth
in relation to our intelligence. And the point of the
controversy now comes before us in this shape : — Can
man apprehend the truth as it exists in relation to
pure intelligence — to intelligence considered simply as
such ? or can he apprehend the truth only as it exists
in relation to his intelligence, considered as a peculiar
kind or mode of intellect ? Now, although it is not
clear that Schelling and his opponents have ever joined
issue explicitly on this question, it is undoubtedly
the question properly in dispute between them.
Schelling argues in favour of the former alternative.
He holds that philosophy is the pursuit of truth as
it stands related to pure intellect, i.e., to intellect
considered universally, and as not modified in any
particular way: he holds that man is competent
to the attainment of such truth, and that such truth
is absolute and unconditioned. The other party
(among whom we venture to place Hamilton) main-
tains that philosophy is the pursuit of truth as it
stands related to our minds considered as a particular
kind or form of intelligence — that man can attain to
no other truth than this, and that this truth is relative
and conditioned.

These respective conclusions rest on grounds which
have now to be considered as forming the ultimate
stage in the adjustment of this controversy. Schel-
ling's ground is that there is a common nature or

554 BIOGEAPHY OF SCHELLING.

quality in all intelligence; that man, through his
participation in this common nature, is, so far, a pure
— that is, a non-particular or universal — intelligence,
and hence is, so far, capable of cognising universal or
unconditioned, truth. That Schelling has worked out
this doctrine explicitly, or even intelligibly, is not to
be maintained. But " the intellectual intuition "
which he ascribes to man is undoubtedly his expres-
sion for the mind considered as a pure intelligence,
and as having something in common with all other
intelligences, whether actual or possible. The "in-
tellectual intuition" is opposed to the sensational
intuition, the latter denoting that part of the mental
economy which is more peculiarly man's own, or
human. Schelling's opponents, on the other hand,
must be prepared to hold and to show that there is no
nature common to all intelligence — that the different
orders of minds (supposing that there are such) have
no point of unity or agreement — that their difference
is absolute and complete. This is the only logical
ground on which they can deny to the mind of man
all cognisance of the unconditioned truth. Such
seem to be the grounds on which the famous question
respecting the philosophy of the unconditioned has to
be debated. We have offered no opinion on the merits
of the case. But the victory is Schelling's if he has
succeeded in showing, or if it be admitted, that every
intelligence has something in common, some point
or points of resemblance, with every other intelligence

BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING. 555

(for that is the fundamental question, the decision of
which decides all) ; while again, his opponents must
be pronounced triumphant if they have proved that
intelligent natures differ from each other entirely, and
have no point or principle in common. On both
sides the terms of the dispute, as here adjusted, have
been only partially adhered to. Schelling often loses
himself in the unintelligible ; his opponents have not
seen the exact point of the problem: so that the
" philosophy of the unconditioned " still calls for a
patient and impartial reconsideration.

The philosophical character and influence of Schel-
ling are well summed up by Mr Morell in the fol-
lowing remarks (see Modern German Philosophy;
Manchester papers, 1856): — "The later phases of
Schelling's philosophy," says Morell, "are chiefly
characterised by unavailing attempts to reconcile the
pantheistic stand-point which he first assumed, with
the notion of a personal Deity, and with the funda-
mental dogmas of the catholic faith. In doing this
he lost the freshness and charm of his first philoso-
phic principles on the one hand, without solving the
problem of religion, or satisfying the practical religious
requirements of humanity on the other. He merely
glided step by step into a strained, unintelligible
mysticism, and, without acknowledging it, became a
foe to all purely philosophic speculation, and a tacit
abettor of an antique romanticism. The followers of
Schelling formed two distinct schools. Those who

556 BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING.

attached themselves to his Natur-philosophie (such as
Oken, Steffens, Cams, and others) have really done
good service in spiritualising the physical philosophy
of the age, without running into any censurable extra-
vagance; while those who started from Schelling's
later mysticism, such as Schubert, Baader, and others
of smaller dimensions still, have done little else than
revel in a species of sentimental mysticism, sometimes
of more elevated, and at others of a very mean and
trifling character. But the influence of Schelling was
not confined to Germany. His attempt to unite the
process of the physical sciences in one affiliated line
with the study of man, both in his individual consti-
tution and historic development, has also had a very
considerable result out of his own country. No one,
for example, who compares the philosophic method of
Schelling with the ' Philosophic positive ' of Auguste
Comte, can have the slightest hesitation as to the
source from which the latter virtually sprang. The
fundamental idea is, indeed, precisely the same as
that of Schelling, with this difference only — that the
idealistic language of the German speculator is here
translated into the more ordinary language of physical
science. That Comte borrowed his views from Schel-
ling we can by no means affirm ; but that the whole
conception of the affiliation of the sciences in the
order of their relative simplicity, and the expansion
of the same law of development so as to include the
exposition of human nature and the course of social
progress, is all to be found there, no one in the

BIOGRAPHY OF SCHELLING. 557

smallest degree acquainted with Schelling's writings
can seriously doubt."

In the form of his head and the expression of
his countenance Schelling is said to have resembled
closely the busts of Socrates, and like him, too, to
have been eloquent in conversation.

BIOGKAPHY OF HEGEL.

Geokg Wilhelm Fkiedkich Hegel, the profoundest
of German metaphysicians, was born at Stuttgart on
the 27th August 1770. He could trace his descent
through a long line of Carinthian and Swabian an-
cestors who had filled respectable places in the
middle ranks of society, and some of whom, in the
time of the Thirty Years' War, had suffered persecu-
tion and expatriation on account of their attachment
to the Protestant cause. His father was superin-
tendent of the ducal finances — a post, it may be
supposed, of much trust and responsibility. The
Swabian temperament — its gravity, straightforward-
ness, and perseverance — is said to have declared
itself at an early period in the life and conversation
of the future philosopher. While still in his teens
he went by the nickname of "the old man." His
school and college diaries, extracts from which have
been published by his biographer Eosenkranz, attest
the extent and variety of his studies. They afford
evidence of indefatigable industry, of pains and

BIOGRAPHY OF HEGEL. 559

thoroughness, rather than of precocity of genius.
Method and persistency were the characteristics of
the youthful scholar, as they were of the mature
metaphysician. At the University of Tubingen, to
which he proceeded in 1788, he was a fellow-student
with Schelling — a kindred spirit, who presented, too,
some very decided points of contrast. For a time
they lived together in the same room; and the in-
timacy thus commenced exercised from first to last
marked influence, partly through sympathy and
partly through rivalry, on the destinies of these two
great thinkers. In later life they had their differ-
ences. "They stood aloof, the scars remaining;"
and so wide, indeed, was the breach that, after
Hegel's death, Schelling was summoned to Berlin
to preach down the doctrines of his early friend,
which were supposed to have become too dominant
and exclusive — an enterprise which he attempted
without much success. But in those early days at
Tubingen, in the springtime of their youth, the
identity of their aspirations (it was the era of the
French Eevolution, when politics were more engross-
ing even than philosophy) seems to have knit them
together, as it afterwards did at Jena, in the closest
intellectual fellowship. After completing his uni-
versity course, Hegel accepted the office of tutor in
a family in Switzerland, which he exchanged, some
years afterwards, for a more agreeable appointment
of the same kind at Frankfort. On the death of his
father in 1799, the small patrimony which he in-

560 BIOGRAPHY OF HEGEL.

herited enabled him to proceed to Jena, and to
establish himself there on a more independent foot-
ing. He gave lectures on philosophy as a private
teacher (privat-docent) in the university. His friend
Schelling, although some years his junior, had got
the start of him, and was settled as a professor
(extraordinary) in the* same place. Goethe, Schiller,
and Wieland, lived at Weimar, which was not far
off, so that he was in contact with the most brilliant
intellectual society which Germany at that time
afforded. The genius of Schelling, as prolific as it
was precocious, had by this time given to the world
a series of profound philosophical disquisitions. At
the age of nineteen he had shown a wonderful in-
sight into the philosophy of Fichte, and had even
carried it forward into a new development; and
when Hegel now joined him he had just published
his 'System of Transcendental Idealism.' Hegel
had no pretensions to such pliancy of intellect and
rapid power of composition ; but he, too, was laying
the foundations of a system, which, although iden-
tical in its groundwork, or nearly so, with that of
Schelling, was intended to be far more rigorous and
logical in its procedure. It was, indeed, in their
method that the main difference between the two
philosophers lay. Schelling was of opinion that the
citadel of truth was to be carried by a coup de main,
by a genial, "intellectual intuition." Hegel con-
ceived that it was to be won only by slow sap and
regular logical approaches.

1

BIOGKAPHY OF HEGEL. 561

Hegel remained at Jena until 1807, during which
period he published a dissertation on ' The Difference
between the Systems of Fichte and of Schelling;'
edited, along with Schelling, a journal of philosophy ;
and delivered lectures on the history of philosophy,
and on the phenomenology of the mind. In 1803
Schelling migrated to Wurzburg, and after some in-
terval Hegel was promoted to the chair which he had
vacated. But the emoluments of an extraordinary
professorship being inadequate to support him, he
resigned the appointment, and removed to Bamberg,
where he acted for a short time as the editor of a
political journal. In 1808 Hegel was appointed to
the office of rector in the gymnasium at Niirnberg.
Here he married, and here he remained, giving elemen-
tary courses of instruction in philosophy and religion,
until 1816, when he received a call to a philosophi-
cal professorship (ordinary) at Heidelberg. Two years
afterwards he was summoned to fill the chair of phil-
osophy in the University of Berlin, which had been
vacant since the death of Fichte in 1814. Thus,
although the events of Hegel's life were simple and
monotonous, the scene of his labours was not a little
varied. Stuttgart, Tubingen, Jena, Bamberg, Niirn-
berg, Heidelberg, and Berlin, these were the stages
in his pilgrimage, and they are here recorded for the
behoof of those who may care to know where a great
philosopher has been domiciled. His appearance and
demeanour as a lecturer are thus described by Bosen-
kranz : " Utterly careless about the graces of rhet-
2 N

562 BIOGRAPHY OF HEGEL.

oric, thoroughly real and absorbed in the business of
the moment, ever pressing forwards, and often ex-
tremely dogmatic in his assertions, Hegel enchained
his students by the intensity of his speculative
power. His voice was in harmony with his eye.
It was a great eye, but it looked inwards ; and
the momentary glances which it threw outwards
seemed to issue from the very depths of idealism,
and arrested the beholder like a spell. His accent
was rather broad, and without sonorous ring; but
through its apparent commonness there broke that
lofty animation which the might of knowledge in-
spires, and which, in moments when the genius of
humanity was adjuring the audience through his
lips, left no hearer unmoved. In the sternness of
his noble features there was something almost cal-
culated to strike terror, had not the beholder been
again propitiated by the gentleness and cordiality of
the expression. A peculiar smile bore witness to
the purest benevolence, but it was blended with
something harsh, cutting, sorrowful, or rather ironi-
cal. His, in short, were the tragic lineaments of
the philosopher, of the hero whose destiny it is to
struggle with the riddle of the universe."

Hegel died at Berlin in 1831. He was cut off
suddenly by cholera. The disease seems to have
attacked his brain principally, and to have run a
milder course than is usual with that formidable
malady. The regulation which declared that all
persons dying of cholera should be buried in a sepa-

BIOGRAPHY OF HEGEL. 563

rate churchyard, was relaxed, by high authority, in
his favour. He was interred beside the grave of
Fichte, in a churchyard near one of the principal
gates of the city.

Soon after Hegel's death, an edition of his collected
works was published by an association of his friends.
This collection comprises his early philosophical
treatises ; the phenomenology of the mind ; logic
(metaphysic) ; the encyclopedia of science (embrac-
ing logic, the philosophy of nature, the philosophy
of mind); the philosophy of law; the philosophy
of history; aesthetics; the philosophy of religion;
the history of philosophy; and miscellaneous writ-
ings— in all eighteen, or rather twenty-one volumes,
for some of them are divided into parts, each of
which is again equal to a volume. To give any
account of writings so multifarious is here quite out
of the question. It is not even possible, within the
limits of this article, to go into any details respect-
ing the Hegelian philosophy, strictly so called. A
slight sketch of its groundwork and general scope is
all that can be attempted. This, however, may be
sufficient. To show clearly what the principle and
aim of the system is, particularly as contrasted with
the philosophy of this country, is what is now pro-
posed, and this may, perhaps, afford some insight
into the system itself, and form a better introduction
to its study than could be obtained from any literal
repetition of its peculiar forms of expression, or of
its peculiar method of procedure.

564 BIOGRAPHY OF HEGEL.

This philosophy gives itself out as the philosophy
of the " absolute." The meaning of this word " abso-
lute," then, is what must, first of all, be determined.
It is nowhere explained by the system, or by any of
its opponents or defenders. It may, indeed, be said
that Hegel's whole philosophy is nothing but an
explanation of the "absolute." But a definition of
one word extending over a score of volumes is very
apt to evaporate before it can be apprehended. The
following is shorter. " The absolute," truth absolute,
is whatever is true for intellect considered simply as
intellect, and not considered as this or as that parti-
cular intellect; it is truth for all intellect, and not
merely truth for some intellect ; in other words, " the
absolute " is truth for pure intellect, and not truth
for modified intellect. An illustration will help to
make plain this somewhat abstract definition. Sup-
pose five intellects, each of them modified by the pos-
session of one, and only one, of our five senses. One
man merely sees, another merely tastes, another
merely smells, another merely hears, and another
merely touches ; and suppose an apple presented to
these five individuals. Each of them would appre-
hend only one sensation ; but while the sensation in
each case would be different, the one in each case
would not be different. The man who saw the apple
would see one sight, the man who tasted it would expe-
rience one taste, the man who heard it (when struck)
would hear one sound, and so in regard to the others.
The sensations would be peculiar to each intellect;

BIOGRAPHY OF HEGEL. 565

each would have its own ; but the " one " would be
common to them all : it would be the same for all.
Here, then, in this " one " we have an absolute truth, or
at any rate a truth which may be accepted as an illus-
tration of such. If there were no other intellects in
the universe except these five, it would, in the strict-
est sense, be an absolute truth. Here the " one " pre-
senting nothing but what is common and intelligible
to all, is to be regarded as a truth of intellect simply
— of pure intellect : the " one sensation " again pre-
senting, in each case, something which is peculiar to
each intellect, is to be regarded as a truth of modi-
fied intellect. Looking at the five cases, we say
that, in each case, the "one sensation," in so far as
it is one, is an absolute and universal truth ; while,
so far as it is sensation, it is a relative and particular
truth. Such is the explanation of "the absolute;"
and it seems not unintelligible if one will keep in
view the illustration by which it is enforced. As
a farther illustration, this remark may be subjoined.
Again consider these five sensations. Each of them
is a peculiar sensation ; but at the same time each
of them is. In so far as each of them is, a truth
for pure intellect, an absolute and universal truth,
emerges. In so far as each of them is peculiar,
a relative and particular truth is presented. Here
then we have " number " and " being," two important
categories, set forth as specimens of the " absolute."

The analysis thus briefly illustrated is the main
principle of the German philosophy in general, and

566 BIOGRAPHY OF HEGEL.

of the system of Hegel in particular. It is true
that he nowhere expressly supplies this analysis,
but it is implied in the whole tenor of his specu-
lations. He rather proceeds prematurely to build
up into a synthesis the elements of pure thought,
which are the result of the analysis. Hence arises,
in a great measure, his obscurity, which seems, in
many places, to be absolutely impenetrable. Never-
theless, in spite of all its defects, his exposition
of the dialectual movement by which the categories
of reason evolve themselves, from lowest to highest,
through a self-conversion into their opposites, is a
work replete at once with the profoundest truth,
and the most marvellous speculative sagacity. Re-
trospectively it affords a solution of the antinomies
by which Kant succeeded in bewildering the reason
of his contemporaries, and it extinguishes, by antici-
pation, the resurrection of these same sceptical per-
plexities which certain philosophers in this country
have of late endeavoured to bring about.

But it is in the analysis referred to that the phi-
losophy of Hegel, and of Germany in general, finds
its most signal contrast in the philosophy of Great
Britain. Of the analysis in question our philoso-
phers have formed no just or adequate conception.
Hence they have misconceived the nature of "the
absolute," and have failed altogether in their at-
tempts to refute the philosophy which expounds
it. They have supposed that the question concern-
ing " the absolute " was a question which referred to

BIOGKAPHY OF HEGEL. 567

the quantity or amount, and not one which referred
merely to the quality or nature of knowledge and
truth. They have thought that unless all knowledge
was ours, a knowledge of "the absolute" could not
be ours; in short, that a claim to a knowledge
of "the absolute" was a claim to the possession
of omniscience. This is a great misapprehension.
" The absolute " has nothing to do with the extent,
but only with the constitution of cognition. Wher-
ever knowledge or thought is, even in its narrowest
manifestation, there "the absolute" is known; be-
cause there something is apprehended by intellect
simply, something which is intelligible, not merely
to this or to that particular mind, but to reason uni-
versally. In any review of the question of "the
absolute," our philosophers would do well to bear in
mind, that not the range or compass, but only the
nature or character of our thought has to be taken
into account. That there are very serious difficulties
to be contended with in establishing "a philosophy
of the absolute" is not to be doubted, and it must
also be admitted that the tendency of such a philo-
sophy is towards the conclusion (whether satisfactory
or not) that rational self-consciousness is the only
ultimate and all-comprehensive reality — is the truth
above all truth — is the primary groundwork as well
as the crowning perfection of the universe. But
this conclusion can neither be established nor gain-
said by any inquiry into the limitations of the
human faculties. It can only be disposed of (whether

568 BIOGRAPHY OF HEGEL.

pro or con) by a thoroughgoing analysis, of which a
faint indication has been given, which shall distin-
guish between the absolute and relative elements
in our cognitions. This Kant attempted, but this
Kant did not achieve; because in his system the
absolute elements are given out as merely relative,
which is equivalent to the assertion that there is
no common nature in all intelligence ; which again
is equivalent to the paradoxical averment that intel-
ligence has no nature or essence whatsoever. Hegel
made the attempt in a far better and truer spirit.
In his conception he is unquestionably right; but
in its execution he has involved himself in laby-
rinthine mazes, to many of which no reader has ever
found, or ever will find the clue. The life of Hegel
has been written at large by his disciple Eosenkranz
of Konigsberg. He and Erdmann of Halle are, in
the opinion of the present writer, the most intelligent
expositors of Hegelianism. Of the heterodox deduc-
tions which some philosophers and theologians have
perversely sought to deduce from the Hegelian
doctrines, it is unnecessary to speak. For these
neither the system itself nor its author are in any
way responsible.

TEANSLATION.

The following specimen of translation is from Dein-
hardstein's ' Bild der Danae.' The principal charac-
ters are the great painter, Salvator Eosa, and the
surgeon, Bernardo Eavienna, not yet known as a
painter, who has practised his art in secret and com-
pleted his picture of Danae, which obtains the enthu-
siastic admiration of Salvator, and the prize in the
competition of the Painting Academy of St Carlo,
thus securing to him the hand of his lady-love
Laura, ward of Calmari, director of the Academy.
The whole is rendered with remarkable spirit and
fidelity, but the story might perhaps not have enough
of interest for English readers to justify its being
published entire.

570 TRANSLATION FROM

Act L, Scene 4.

Sal. I did not think he would have closed with me.
Bring but the gold, and thou shalt be exposed
Till Florence wide shall ring with thy disgrace.
Thou thoughtest, didst thou, I would sell my birthright,
And tear for gold the laurel from my brow 1
Old dotard ! dealings such as thine would rob
The light of splendour, and the flower of bloom.
Think'st thou I came to Florence as a huckster —
Not as a painter lit by light from heaven 1
I'll teach thee what it is to lay a hand,
Audacious and impure, on holy things.
Love thou would'st purchase — thou would'st purchase

fame,
And painting's pleasures, shunning all its pains.
The rose thou wishest ! thou shalt feel the thorn —
This is a bargain thou shalt long remember.

DEINHARDSTEIN. 571

Salvator.

Das dacht' ich nicht, dass er's bezahlte. — Thor !

Bring' nur das Geld, ich will Dich wohl bedeuten,

Yor ganz Florenz sollst Du zu Schanden steh'n.

Du meinst, ich soil mein Yaterrecht verkauferj,

Urn Geld den Lorbeer nehmen von dem Haupt ;

Der Blume willst abhandeln Du ihr Bliih'n,

Dem Licht den Glanz ; — glaubst Du, ich sei gekommen

Als Makler, nicht als Maler, nach Florenz,

Ich will Dir zeigen, was das heisst, die Hand

Mit frechem Diinkel an das Heil'ge legen.

Dir Liebe willst Du kaufen — und den Euhm ;

Die Kiinstlerlust, und ohne Kiinstlerschmerzeii,

Willst Du die Bose — nimm den Dorn dazu ;

Du sollst mir wohl an dieseni Handel denken !

572 TRANSLATION FROM

Act II., Scene 1.

Laura. To-day

Is fixed for the decision of the prizes.

Eav. To-day?

Lau. Yes ! were you not aware of that 1

Eav. How should I know it 1

Lau. (sighing). Ay ! too true — too true-

You are no painter.

Eav. "Wherefore do you sigh 1

Oh, Laura, Laura ! does the painter's art
Engross so large a share of your esteem,
That but a secondary love is left
For a poor surgeon 1

Lau. What you are to me,

Bernardo, you know well. Yet I confess
If you were but a painter, all my wishes
Would be fulfilled. I have a love for painters —
A love inhaled with the first air I breathed —
My father was devoted to the art
With all the zeal of an enthusiast.
He had himself some skill, and our whole house
Was filled with paintings by the greatest masters.
Thus in an atmosphere of grace and beauty
My infancy was spent — my playmates, pictures.
After my father's death my guardian took me ;
And he, too, is possessed by the same passion.
Mewed up, secluded by his jealous care,
From all society of men, I still
Had friends about me, and these friends were still
The bright creations of the painter's hand.

DEINHARDSTEIN. 573

A. IL, S. 1.

Laura. Es ist heut'

Die Preisvertheilung von San Carlo.

Rav. (wie verwundert). Heut' ?

Lau. Das wisst Ihr nicht 1

Rav. Wie sollt' Ich %

Lau. (seufzend). Ereilich — freilich —

Ihr seid kein Maler.

Rav. Warum seufzt Ihr, Laura 1

Seid Ihr der Maler-kunst so hold, dass Euch
Der schlichte Wundarzt wenig, gar nichts dunkt 1

Lau. Ihr wisst, was Ihr mir seid ; doch gem bekeim'
ich,
Yoll war' mein Gluck, triebt Ihr die Kunst, Bernardo.
Ich bin den Malern gut, ich will's gesteh'n,
Doch ist's ein Wunder auch, nach meiner Weise 1
Der Vater war der edlen Malerei
Fast schwarmerisch ergeben. Manches Bild
Von gutem Werthe hat er selbst gemalt,
Und kaufte viel von Eildern grosser Meister.
So war Ich denn von erster Jugend an
Den herrlichen Gestalten gegeniiber.
Kach meines guten Vaters friihem Tod
Kam ich zum Oheim. Eine gleiche Lust
Zur Kunst lebt auch in ihm. Von Menschen fern,
Gehutet von des Oheim s Eifersucht,
Bin ich wie unter Bildern aufgewachsen.

574 TRANSLATION FROM

The tender Guido and the soft Romano,

The earnest Annibal, the pious Durer —

These were the dear companions of my youth,

And with their works my fondest thoughts are twined.

Methinks, Bernardo, if you were to try

You might become a painter ; for so true

A feeling of the beautiful is yours,

And I have heard you speak respecting art

In terms so glowing, that I am sure you love it.

Now for my sake, do try. The laurel's green,

How well it would become these clustering locks !

Rav. (aside). Oh ! heavenly rapture !

Lau. (leaning on his shoulder). Promise me you'll
try?

Rav. If all goes well, I promise you I will.

Lau. Oh ! that is charming ! Now, ev'n now, methinks
I see you seated at your easel, with
Myself beside you, stealing, whilst I knit,
Admiring glances as your work proceeds.
I read your name already in the lists
Of glory — of myself I hear it said,
That is the wife of the illustrious Bernard —
Oh ! what a dream of joy !

Rav. A dream indeed.

Lau. Which shall come true — if you'll but persevere.
No doubt the first steps will be difficult,
But practice in the end will make you perfect.

DEINH ARDSTEIN. 575

Der sanfte Guido, freundliche Romano,

Der fromme Diirer, ernste Annibal,

Sind niir Bekannte einer friihen Zeit

Und inahnen mich au meine Kinderjahre.

Ihr sprecht manchmal so Wahres von der Kunst,

So tief Empfund'nes, dass — man glauben muss,

Sie sei nicht fremd Euch j — so versucht Euch denn,

Ihr seid noch jung. — Er stund' Euch gut, Bernardo,

Der grime Lorbeer in dem braunen Haar.

Rav. (bei Seite). 0 himmlisches Entziicken !

Lau. (sich an seine Schulter lehnend). Ihr versprecht
mir's'J

Rav. (lachelnd). Ja, wenn's nur geht, versuchen will
ich's wohl.

Lau. (in die Hande schlagend). 0 das ist herrlich !
herrlich ! Wenn Ihr dann
Vor Eurer Staffelei sitzt j — ich dabei,
Vom Strickzeug manchmal schielend auf das Bild,
Wenn Euer Name dann genannt wird unter
Den grossen Malern, und man sagen wird,
Das ist das Weib des herrlichen Bernardo,
Ich kann's nicht denken !

Rav. War's nur schon so weit.

Lau. 'S wird werden. — Habt nur Muth — Im Anfang
freilich
Geht's nicht so leicht ; allein die Fertigkeit
Erwirbt sich bald.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SON3.

LECTUKES

ON

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

AND OTHER

PHILOSOPHICAL REMAINS

JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER

B.A. OXON., LL.D.

LATK PROPKSSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THR
UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS

EDITED BY

SIR ALEXANDER GRANT, BART., D.C.L., LL.D.

PRINCIPAL OK THE UNIVERSITY OK EDINBURGH
AND

E. L. LUSHINGTON, LL.D.

LATK PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

IN TWO VOLUMES.— VOL. II.
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