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VARIOUS OBJECTIONS.

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whether placed in the position of the first net or in that of the second, is, from the very nature of the case, futile, and that Hamilton would have been only judicious had he saved himself this whole industry. An industry, indeed, that transfers the qualities of an unperceived and unknown organism to a perceived and known outer world in such wise that we only know what we do not know, while what we do not perceive is all that we do perceive, must be pronounced extravagant and improbable. Nor less objectionable is the violence which is done to consciousness in that it is transferred from the things without to the nervous tissue within, at the same time that its natural authority is claimed for it—in the new position — a claim which, on the part of Hamilton, can only vitiate his single appeal by demolishing the sole standard to which it is addressed, common sense. The interposition, indeed, of the nervous system between the mind within and the world without, which is the one act of Hamilton, must be declared, as it has been handled by him, supervacaneous and idle; not one difficulty affecting the intercourse of mind and matter having in reality been touched by it; while we are left at last with so insecure and insignificant a non-ego that we may legitimately conclude in regard to the general scheme of Hamilton, that it proves what it would disprove, and disproves what it would prove, or that it directly leads, not to presentative realism, but to cosmothetic idealism! Indeed, it is difficult to conceive any theory of perception more glaringly and thoroughly representative than

that of Hamilton: that outer object, whatever it may be, that we suppose ourselves to perceive, is only in name an outer object; it is an unknown substrate, a phenomenon from the first, and we know it, not by what it presents, but by what it represents the qualities, that is, primary and secondary, of our own nervous net, or, even, as in the case of the latter, of our own mental unit. It itself, the outer object, is never perceived at all-it is only supposed; and it is resistance, a state of our own, that thus supposes— that thus infers it. Nor is it for itself that it is inferred, but only for an other-only as locus, that isonly as place of reflections for qualities to which, whether primary or secondary, it itself may in no respect correspond. Any such correspondence as regards the latter class, Hamilton himself would seem to deny; and we cannot doubt now that, had he understood the evidence of Kant, he would have been similarly minded as regards the former. What universe, then, can we possibly conceive more representative? In Kant, the unknown outer substrate may be perceived at least to harmonise with the inner faculty; but we know of no provision in Hamilton for even so much presentationism as this. His primary qualities were at all times but an insignificant barrier against the great sea of relativity that existed for him everywhere else; but now that these are withdrawn, there is but a single expanse-an expanse of representationism-and its originator is Hamilton! *

*Hamilton, who would have inner immediate to outer, not only inserts between them the medium of the nerves, but in order still to effect imme

WHAT SUGGESTED THE THEORY?

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Not only has the theory, however, a very ingenious look, especially at first hand, but it has also an original look; and we become curious to know how it was come by. Now, on this head, we may point out, in the first place, that what is now so commonly known as Berkeley's theory of vision, contains a very general analogy to the view in question. In both, what is held to be originally known by sight is but the lit or coloured ocular membrane; and in both, all that follows is but what has been called 'the art of seeing things that are invisible'—an art in which touch plays. the tutor to sight, and teaches it to translate its own visual figure into its (the tutor's) tactual one. Now, Dr. Thomas Brown is generally admitted to have suc cessfully controverted the assumption of visible figure as an original cognition of sight. To say, then, that Hamilton restored what Brown had destroyed, is not imperfectly to name Hamilton's whole action here. It was probably not from this direction, however, that Hamilton came on his theory;-though it is quite possible that it was at least partly from this direction that he came on his hatred to Brown. His theory once for all formed, that is, he conceivably found, to his astonishment, that Brown-and this is an experi

diation, he is obliged to interpolate no less than eight contrivances more: the eight conditions, namely, -Attention, Quality, Space, Memory, Judgment, &c.,—which he assumes as necessary and indispensable to every act of perception. Such complicated mediacy contrasts oddly with the simple immediacy it would produce. Space is granted as a presupposition at last; but this presupposition, though it nullifies in advance, is not allowed to pretermit, the whole laborious theory. Then memory, which is representative to Hamilton himself, is a necessary element in what remains presentative all the same!

ence by no means the only one of the sort in the too precipitate Hamilton-had already destroyed it in advance. Certainly visible figure, and presence of the mind to its own organ, do not, at first sight, look like synonyms, and it is this unlikeness which induces us to believe that the one was not derivative from the other; yet, beyond all doubt, synonyms they are, and the point of view thus obtained is crucial for the theory that contains the latter.

But, in the second place, the direction from which we believe Hamilton really to have come on his theory lies here:-At page 144 of his edition of Reid's Works, Hamilton refers to a comment by Stewart on a passage from Reid. The latter runs thus:-'Our eye might have been so framed as to suggest the figure of the object without suggesting colour or any other quality; and, of consequence, there seems to be no sensation appropriated to visible figure; this quality being suggested immediately by the material impression on the organ, of which impression we are not conscious.' The comment, again, after a declaration on the part of Stewart, that this has been a puzzle of forty years to him, is as follows:-'To my apprehension, nothing can appear more manifest than this, that

* Among the preceding objections to Hamilton's theory, perhaps the very strongest is that which points out that the metaphor of light is at once quenched when applied to the other senses. Consulting 'Brown's Lectures' in reference to Berkeley's theory of vision, I find that argument virtually anticipated by Brown; and yet I think I took it not from Brown, but from the nature of the case. One is rather gratified, however, by anticipations at the hands of a man like Brown, who is not only built into our admiration by his rare subtlety, but endeared to our very affection by his sweet candour.

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if there had been no variety in our sensations of colour, and, still more, if we had no sensation of colour whatsoever, the organ of sight could have given us no information either with respect to figures, or to distance; and, of consequence, would have been as useless to us, as if we had been afflicted, from the moment of our birth, with a gutta serena.'

We may remark here, firstly, that Brown's general argument against the originality of visible figure as a cognition of sight, is, virtually, but a turning of the first averment of Reid against his second, or it is simply an inversion of the reasoning of Reid. Reid, namely (his thoughts being shaken into place), reasons thus:-Figure being different from, and no element of, the sensation colour, it must be immediately suggested. Brown, again, says, Figure being different from colour, and no element of the sensation, it can not be immediately suggested, but is acquired by experience of other sense.

Then, with reference to Stewart, surely he might have spared himself his long puzzle of forty years, seeing that the passage from Reid is nothing but an expression, not only of the general doctrine, but of the single argument, accepted by both, that the primary qualities, forming no part of the sensation, can only be immediately suggested on occasion of the sensation. Reid does not say that the eye does suggest figure without suggesting colour; he understands his own doctrine and its terms too well for that; but he says, 'The eye might have been so framed,' and it is, at least, usual to take these might-have-beens, especially where

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