circumstances it may cease; for information on such topics we must go to other quarters. But when the question is started, we must decide that this thing had a being prior to our perceiving it -unless indeed it so happened that it was produced by a power capable of doing so at the very time our senses alighted on it; and that it will continue to exist after we have ceased to regard itunless indeed something interpose to destroy it. All this is involved in our very cognition of the object, and he who would deny this is setting aside our very primitive knowledge, and he who would argue against this, will never be able to convince us in fact, because he is opposing a fundamental conviction which will work whenever the object is presented.1

III. In our primitive cognition of body there is involved a knowledge of outness or externality. We know the object perceived, be it the organism or the object affecting the organism, as In regard to some of the

not in the mind, as out of the mind. objects perceived by us we may be in doubt as to whether they are in the organism or beyond it, but we are always sure that they are extra-mental. This is a conviction from which we can never be driven by any power of will or force of circumstances. It is at the foundation of the judgments to be afterwards specified as to the distinctions between the self and the not-self, the ego and non-ego.3

1 The convictions referred to in these paragraphs, set aside at once the doctrine of Kant, that the mind, in the intuition of sense, takes cognizance of phenomena in the sense of appearances. They should also modify the doctrine of Hamilton. "Our knowledge of qualities or phenomena is necessarily relative, for these exist only as they exist in relation to our faculties" (Foot-note to Reid, p. 323). It is a truism that we can know objects merely as our faculties enable us to know them; but the question is, What is the nature and extent of the knowledge which our faculties furnish? I admit that whatever external objects we know, we know in a relation to us. But I hold that man and his faculties are so constituted as to know things (with being) exercising qualities, and to know qualities as existing separate from and independent of our cognition of them by our faculties.

2 "Perception involves in every instance the notion of externality, or outness" (D. Stewart, Essays, p. 419).

3 The convictions spoken of in these paragraphs set aside all forms of idealism in sense-perception. Berkeley says, that "of unthinking things without us their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds of thinking things which perceive them." "When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas" (Principles of Human Knowledge, ii. xxiv.). I hold, that according to our

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IV. In all our knowledge through the senses we know the object as extended. I am inclined to think that this knowledge in the concrete is involved even in such perceptions as those of smell, taste, hearing, and feeling, and the allied affections of temperature and titillation. In all these we intuitively know the organism as out of the mind, as extended, and as localized. At every waking moment we have sensations from more than one sense, and we must know the organs affected as out of each other and in different places. It is acknowledged that the primitive knowledge got in this way is very bare and limited, and without those perceived relationships and distinctions which become associated with it in our future life. But imperfect though it be, it must ever involve the occupation of space. The other two senses furnish more express information, the eye giving a coloured surface of a defined form, and the muscular sense extension in three dimensions. It should be noticed that in our knowledge of extra-organic objects, whether by the eye or the muscular sense, we know them as situated in a certain place in reference to our organism, which we have already so far localized and distributed in space, and which henceforth we use as a centre for direction and distance.

V. We know the objects as affecting us. I have already said intuitive conviction, the thing which we perceive must exist before we can perceive it, and that we perceive it as an extended thing independent and out of the contemplative mind. Fichte represents the external thing as a creation or projection of the perceiving mind. But the mind in knowing the self as perceiving, knows that it is an external thing that is perceived, and cannot be made to think otherwise. Professor Ferrier bases his fabric of demonstrated idealism on the proposition, the object of knowledge "always is, and must be, the object with the addition of one's-self,-object plus subject, -thing, or thought, mecum” (Inst. of Metaph. prop. ii.). If this proposition professes to be a statement of fact, I deny that the fact of consciousness is properly stated. If it professes to be a first truth, I deny that it ought to be assumed in this particular form. No doubt we always know self at the same time that we know an external object by sense-perception, but we know the external object as separate from and independent of self. We might as well deny that we know the object at all, as deny that we know it to have an existence distinct from self.

1 Hamilton says, "An extension is apprehended in the apprehension of the reciprocal externality of all sensations" (Appendix to Reid, p. 885). Again, "In the consciousness of sensations relatively localized and reciprocally external, we have a veritable apprehension and consequently an immediate perception of the affected organism, as extended, divided, figured, etc.” (Ibid. 】. 884). Em. Saisset, in the article Sens, in Dict. des Sciences Philosophiques, dwells on the localization of our sensations in their various organic seats.

that we know them as independent of us. This is an important truth. But it is equally true and equally important that these objects are made known to us as somehow having an influence on us. The organic object is capable of affecting our minds, and the extra-organic object affects the organism which affects the mind. Upon this cognition are founded certain judgments as to the relations of the objects known to the knowing mind. In particular,

VI. In certain, if not in all, of our original cognitions through the senses we know the objects as exercising potency or property. This is denied in theory by many who are yet found to admit it inadvertently when they tell us that we can know matter only by its properties for what, I ask, are properties but powers to act in a certain way? But still it is dogmatically asserted, that whatever we may know about material objects, we can never know that they have power; we cannot see power, they say, nor hear power, nor touch power. In opposition to these confident assertions, I lay down the very opposite dogma, that we cannot see body, or touch, or even hear, or taste, or smell body, except as affecting us, that is, having a power in reference to us. When an extra-organic body resists our muscular energy,' what is it doing but affecting our organism in a certain way? The very coloured surface revealed through sight, is known to us as affecting, that is, having an influence over, our organism. But there is more than this,-the organism is known as having power to affect the cognitive self. The muscular effort resisted, the visual organs impressed by the coloured surface, are known as producing an effect on the mind. The organs affected in smell, in taste, in temperature, in hearing, in feeling, are all known as rousing the mind into cognitive activity. It might be further maintained, even in regard to those senses which do not immediately reveal anything extra-organic, that they seem to point to some unknown cause of the affection

1 Locke says that impenetrability, or, as he prefers calling it, as having less of a negative meaning, solidity, seems the “idea most intimately connected with and essential to body, so as nowhere else to be found or imagined, but only in matter;" and he adds, we "find it inseparably inherent in body wherever or however modified ;" and in explaining this, he says of bodies, that "they do by an insurmountable force hinder the approach of the parts of our hands that press them" (Essay, ш. IV. 1).

known; but it is better to postpone the treatment of this question till it can be fully discussed. But in regard to the two senses which reveal objects beyond the bodily frame, and in regard to all the senses as far as they make known our frame to us, it seems clear to me, that there is an intuitive conviction of potency wrapped up in all our cognitions.

But it will be vehemently urged that it is most preposterous to assert that we know all this by the senses. Upon this I remark that the phrase by the senses is ambiguous. If by senses be meant the mere bodily organism,-the eye, the ears, the nerves, and the brain,-I affirm that we know, and can know, nothing by this bodily part, which is a mere organ or instrument; that so far from knowing potency or extension, we do not know even colour, or taste, or smell. But if by the senses be meant the mind exercised in sense-perception, summoned into activity by the organism, and contemplating cognitively the external world, then I maintain that we do know, and this intuitively, external objects as influencing us—that is, exercising powers in reference to us. I ask those who would doubt of this doctrine of what it is that they suppose the mind to be cognizant in sense-perception. If they say a mere sensation or impression in the mind, I reply that this is not consistent with the revelation of consciousness, which announces plainly that what we know is something extra-mental. If they say, with Kant, a mere phenomenon in the sense of appearance, then I reply that this too is inconsistent with consciousness, which declares that we know the thing. But if we know the thing, we must know something about it. If they say we know it as having extension and form, I grasp at the admission, and ask them to consider how high the knowledge thus allowed, involving at one and the same time space, and an object occupying space, and so much of space. Surely those who acknowledge this much may be prepared to confess further that the mind which in perception is capable of knowing an object as occupying space, is also capable of knowing the same object as exercising power in regard to us. We have only to examine the state of

1 "C'est la raison, et la raison seule, qui connaît, et connaît le monde; et elle ne le connaît d'abord qu'à titre de cause; il n'est d'abord pour nous que la cause des phénomènes sensitifs que nous ne pouvons nous rapporter à nous-mêmes ; et

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mind involved in all our cognitions of matter to discover that there is involved in it a knowledge both of extension and of property.

Such seem to be some of the principal of our cognitions through the senses; and I have sought to evolve them by an analysis proceeding on a careful observation of their nature.

SECT. III.-SOME DISTINCTIONS TO BE ATTENDED TO IN REGARD TO OUR COGNITION OF BODY.

It is a fundamental position with the author of this treatise that we ought to look on all our primitive cognitions as guaranteeing a reality. In particular, we are to look on each of our senseperceptions as pointing to a corresponding extra-mental object. But in order to be able to maintain this doctrine with even the appearance of plausibility, it is necessary to attend to certain distinctions.

I. There is the DISTINCTION BETWEEN OUR ORIGINAL AND ACQUIRED PERCEPTIONS. In standing up for the trustworthiness of our perceptions, I always mean our original perceptions, proceeding from the primitive principles of the mind, and having the sanction of Him who gave us our constitution. The perceptions acquired by inference, or other intellectual processes grounded on experinous ne rechercherions pas cette cause, par conséquent nous ne la trouverions pas, si notre raison n'était pourvue du principe de casualité, si nous pouvions supposer qu'un phénomène peut commencer à apparaître sur le théâtre de la conscience, du temps ou de l'espace, sans qu'il ait une cause. Donc le principe de causalité, je ne crains pas de le dire, est le père du monde extérieur, loin qu'il soit possible de l'en tirer, et de le faire venir de la sensation." So says M. Cousin in criticising Locke (Deux. Sér. tom. iii. leç. 19). This is not far from the truth. There is reason or intelligence involved in our knowledge of the external world, and there is causality in this knowledge. The mind knows the external thing as a causeit must know it in other characters as well, in particular it must know it as extended-still, it knows it as a cause. But, except in the mode of development, this doctrine does not differ so much from that of Locke as Cousin imagines. Locke derives the materials of all our ideas from sensation and reflection. He derives our idea of cause from both these sources. But then the mind, in the formation of its ideas, proceeds intelligently, reasonably. There is intelligence, according to Locke, in sensation, and in comparing certain ideas the mind perceives their agreement immediately by intuition. Locke's account of the full phenomenon does not seem to me satisfactory, or very congruously wrought out; but it is quite as near the truth as that of Cousin, who calls sensation the chronological condition, and reason the logical principle. (See this distinction examined, infra, Part I. Book 1. Chap. ii. sect. vi.)