CHAPTER VI.

BODY.

We have now to face a more perplexing subject, the idea and conviction which we have in regard to an external world, the way in which we reach these, and the objective reality involved in them. In this border country there has been a war for ages in the past, and there is likely to be a war for ages in the future. There are real difficulties in the inquiry arising from the circumstance that conscious mind and unconscious matter are so different—while yet they have an evident mutual relation, and also from the apparent deception of the senses; and speculators have gathered an accumulation of imaginary ones by their refined and elaborate speculations, so that now there are not only the original obstacles in the way, but a host of traditional feuds. I cling to the conviction that there is a doctrine of natural realism, which, if only we could seize and express it, will be found encompassed with fewer difficulties than any far-fetched or artificial system.

Sir William Hamilton has given us a very elaborate classification of the theories of sense-perception.

It is

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not needful to follow him in this treatise. But in order to correct errors and prepare the way for a fair discussion, it may serve some good purposes to look at the account given, of the steps involved, by the three British metaphysicians who have given the greatest attention to the subject. To begin with Dr. Thomas Reid. According to him, there is, first, an action or affection of the organism; there is, next, a sensation in the mind; thirdly, this sensation as a sign, suggests intuitively an external object. The two points on which he dwells chiefly are, first, that there is no idea between the external object and the mind perceiving; and secondly, that we reach a belief in the external world intuitively, and not by any process of reasoning. "This conviction is not only irresistible, but it is immediate; that is, it is not by a train of reasoning and argumentation that we come "to be convinced of the existence of what we perceive" (Works, p. 259). I believe that he has established his two points successfully, and in doing so he has rendered immense service to philosophy. Dr. Thomas Brown gives a different account of the operation. There is first, as in the other theory-indeed in all theories, an affection of the bodily frame; secondly, a sensation in the mind; and thirdly, a reference of that to an external object as the cause. He calls in two general mental laws to give us the reference. The first is an intuitive law of cause and effect, which impels us when we discover an effect to look for a cause. We have a sensation of resistance, of which we discover no cause within the mind, and therefore we look for it beyond the

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mind. The second law, of which he makes large use, is that of suggestion, which connects sensations, so that one becomes representative of others.

Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mill are for ever criticising these two doctrines, but it may be doubted whether either has given a clear and correct exposition of them. Hamilton, when he commenced his edition of Reid, thought that philosopher's views were the same as his own (we shall see wherein they differ immediately); as he advances, he sees that this is not the case; and he nowhere gives us a precise account of Reid's theory, which, whether well founded or not, is consistent and easily understood. As to Brown, Hamilton is for ever carping at him, as if he had a cherished determination to remove his system out of the way, as one that opposed the reception of his own. The circumstance that neither Reid's theory nor Brown's theory would quite fit into his compartments, is a proof that Hamilton's classification of theories, though distinguished by great logical power, is not equal to the diversities of human conception and speculation. He clearly does injustice to Brown, by insisting on making him an idealist-he makes him a cosmothetic idealist. Now there is no idea in Brown's system, as there was in the older theories. He made great use of sensation, and was in great difficulties when he attempted to show how, from this sensation, we could infer an external world; but the sensation is an existing, and not an imaginary thing like the idea; and the sensation was held by him to be an effect, but not at all a representative, of an external

and extended object. Mr. Mill, in criticising Hamilton's criticism, would make Reid an idealist (p. 177). This is obviously a mistake. Reid did call in a sensation as a sign, but it was not supposed to be representative, that is, to bear any resemblance or analogy like the old idea to the external object. All that is asserted of it is that we are conscious of it, which we are not of the idea, and that it suggests a belief in an external object intuitively, and by the appointment of Him who gave us our constitution. Mill represents Reid and Brown as holding substantially the same doctrine: "The dif"ference between them is extremely small, and, I will "add, unimportant" (p. 175). Reid held that we never could reason from the sensation within to the extended object without. Brown labours to show that the whole process is one of ordinary inference, proceeding always on the intuitive law of cause and effect, aided by the association of ideas. But Mr. Mill tells us that "Brown also

thinks that we have, on the occasion of certain sensa"tions, an instantaneous conviction of an outward object" (p. 164). I am surprised at such a statement from one who has imbibed so much from Brown, who so clearly represents the process as involving inference. We find everywhere such passages as the following: "Percep"tion, then, even in that class of feelings by which

we learn to consider ourselves as surrounded by sub"stance, extended and resisting, is only another name, as

I have said, for the result of certain associations and "inferences that flow from other more general principles "of the mind" (Lectures, xxvi.) I call the theory of Brown

(which is taken from the Sensational School of France) the Inferential, as distinguished from the Ideal theory on the one hand, and the Intuitive theory on the other.

Hamilton's doctrine differs both from that of Reid and Brown. It is, that there is first an action of the organism, and secondly, a simultaneous sensation and perception. He labours particularly to show that senseperception being evoked, there is nothing between it and the object, no sensation, no idea; but that we gaze at once on the object, in fact are conscious of it, conscious at one and the same time of the ego and the non ego. Between this and Brown's doctrine there is an irreconcilable difference. Brown makes the process one of inference, implying, no doubt, an intuition, but an intuition of a general character bearing on all other mental operations. Hamilton makes the perception primitive, and original, and immediate. Hamilton also differs from Reid, but the point is not so important. Reid makes the sensation precede the perception; whereas Hamilton, in accordance, I think, with the revelations of consciousness, makes them contemporaneous. Both make the operation intuitive and not inferential. This doctrine of Hamilton is not without its difficulties.

It leaves many points unexplainedperhaps they are ultimate and cannot be explained -possibly they are so simple that they do not need explanation. It does not profess to show how the preceding organic affection is connected with the mental perception. Perhaps the human faculties cannot clear up the subject. Possibly the question itself may be un