either of sensation or of reflection [no, says Kant, they attach to the sensuous, but à priori, spectra, space and time]. (Reid's Works, p. 126.) The primary qualities of matter thus develop themselves with rigid necessity out of the simple datum— substance occupying space. In a certain sort, and by contrast to the others, they are, therefore, notions, à priori, and to be viewed, pro tanto, as products of the understanding. (Reid's Works, p. 848.) [The apprehension of the primary qualities is called] purely spiritual [and they themselves] necessary and universal. (Reid's Works, pp. 858, 865: see also the description of the primary qualities in the previous quotation, Reid's Works, p. 860.)

These extracts and many others might be added to the same effect—we may allowably assume to be sufficient in themselves. The general tenour of them, indeed, goes to show that the primary qualities are not cognitions of sense at all, but result from an intellectual, spiritual, spontaneous energy of the mind itself. In short, the entire relative argumentation of Hamilton unequivocally demonstrates the necessary, à priori, and so mental nature of all his own percepts proper. It is quite certain, nevertheless, that Hamilton does attach a sensuous nature to these percepts all the same, and what we would point out is, that Hamilton, on his own principles, ought to have seen into the preposterousness of this addition, both in their case individually, and in that of space as their matrix in general. Hamilton is perfectly aware that the signs which separate the pure or à priori from the empirical or à posteriori are necessity and universality. We find him again and again stating this: we find him, indeed, with an allure customary to him, quoting Leibnitz on this point with a view to lessen the rela

THE PERCEPTS PROPER.

79

tive merit of Kant. Leibnitz, he says, remarks that 'the senses indeed inform us what may take place, but not what necessarily takes place,' &c. (Meta. ii. 347.) In truth, with this criterion of necessity so distinctly present to his mind, and in view of the issues so markedly emerging from the theory of Kant, it is surprising that Hamilton should have attempted a task so self-contradictory and absurd as an induction from experience of matters that plainly preceded, and were independent of, all experience; but it is still more surprising that, of Kant's four reasons as regards the nature of space, two of them were advanced directly to prove that space was a perception and not a conception, and that Hamilton should not have known as much.*

Hamilton, then, pronouncing his own percepts proper, or the primary qualities, to hold of the understanding rather than of sense, and ascribing to them, moreover, the peculiar necessity and validity we signalise, ought to have seen that, as they were impossibly contingent or à posteriori, they must be à priori, and not empirical at all. His error with these, in fact, is identical with his error with space: he failed to perceive that, though mental, they might, by projection, pass into the contingent, and return with the contingent for actual apprehension by special sense;not, however, that they themselves, or any element of

* This is a clear proof that Hamilton was indebted for the very imperfect little he knew of Kant to the literature of the subject.' It is also a clear proof of the precarious nature of book-manipulation, even with the very quickest eye; for few things are more eye-catching in Kant than his formal arguments in reference to space. But see ii. 2.

them, had any source whatever but the mind itself. It is particularly interesting, indeed, to collate the difficulties of Aristotle and the rest with the focal solution into which Kant, almost by their own arguments, finally reduced them.

Apart, then, this untenable sensuous side, which, however, we shall presently examine for itself, it is impossible any longer for Hamilton to refuse the companionship of Kant—it is impossible any longer for Hamilton to refuse the title of cosmothetic idealist. He himself points to the primary qualities as the only septum that in his own belief exists to separate him from Kant. These primary qualities he himself resolves into space, and space itself he accepts at the hands of Kant. There is nothing, then, between them but an unnecessary real space due to his own mistake; and, this mistake corrected, septum there is none, the drops have coalesced, they are now one: Hamilton, already so largely relativist and phenomenalist, is now wholly such, and the discussion is finished.

This sensuous side of Hamilton constitutes, however, perhaps the very most interesting element in the whole of his industry, and cannot be passed over. It is an element, indeed, that, whether in that he read, or whether in that he thought, may be almost named his centre. The following extracts will, with those that precede, elucidate our meaning:

This extreme doctrine [alluding to that referred to in the quotations above from Aristotle, the Schoolmen, Hutcheson, Reid, &c.] is not, however, to be admitted. As sensibles, the common [i. e., the percepts proper, the primary qualities]

THE SENSUOUS SIDE OF THE THEORY.

81

must be allowed to act somehow upon the sense, though in a different manner from the proper. Comparatively speaking, the proper act primarily, corporeally, and by causing a passion in the sense; the common secondarily, formally, and by eliciting the sense and understanding to energy. But though there lies in the proper more of passivity, in the common more of activity, still the common are, in propriety, objects of sense per se; being neither cognised (as substances) exclusively by the understanding, nor (as is the sweet by vision) accidentally by sense. (Reid's Works, p. 860.) [Here, evidently, it is not fact that prescribes so and so; but just Hamilton that, for his own convenience, says so and so: the common sensibles are held or demonstrated to be intellectual, but I, Hamilton, will them to be also sensuous, and accordingly they are also sensuous. It is this wilfulness, however, that has impaled Hamilton on the horns of the dilemma with which the preceding sub-section (2) ends.]

It may appear, not a paradox merely, but a contradiction, to say, that the organism is, at once, within and without the mind; is at once subjective and objective; is at once ego and non-ego. But so it is; the organism, as animated, as sentient, is necessarily ours, and its affections are only felt as affections of the individual ego. In this respect, and to this extent, our organs are not external to ourselves. But our organism is not merely a sentient subject, it is at the same time an extended, figured, divisible, in a word, a material, subject; and the same sensations, which are reduced to unity in the indivisibility of consciousness, are in the divisible organism recognised as plural and reciprocally external, and, therefore, as extended, figured, divided. (Reid's Works, p. 880, note.)

By a law of our nature, we are not conscious of the existence of our organism (as a body simply), consequently not conscious of any of its primary qualities, unless when we are conscious of it, as modified by a secondary quality, or some other of its affections, as an animated body. But the former consciousness requires the latter only as its negative condi

G

tion, and is neither involved in it as a part, nor properly dependent on it as a cause. The object in the one consciousness. is also wholly different from the object in the other. In that, it is a contingent passion of the organism, as a constituent of the human self; in this, it is some essential property of the organism, as a portion of the universe of matter, and though apprehended by, not an affection proper to, the conscious. self at all. In these circumstances, the secondary quality, say a colour, which the mind apprehends in the organism, is, as a passion of self, recognised to be a subjective object ; whereas the primary quality, extension, or figure, or number, which, when conscious of such affection, the mind therein at the same time apprehends, is, as not a passion of self, but a common property of matter, recognised to be an objective object. (Reid's Works, p. 858, note.)

It is sufficient to establish the simple fact, that we are competent, as consciousness assures us, immediately to apprehend through sense the non-ego in certain limited relations; and it is of no consequence whatever, either to our certainty of the reality of a material world, or to our ultimate knowledge of its properties, whether by this primary apprehension we lay hold, in the first instance, on a larger or a lesser portion of its contents. (Reid's Works, p. 814.) The perception of parts out of parts is not given in the mere affection of colour, but is obtained by a reaction of the mind upon such affection. The secondary quality of colour is, in the strictest sense, a passive affection of the sentient ego.... But the apprehension of extension, figure, divisibility, &c., which, under condition of its being thus affected, simultaneously takes place, is, though necessary, wholly active and purely spiritual. (Reid's Works, p. 858.) [Thus an] Error of the common opinion, that the apprehension through sight of colour, and the apprehension through sight of extension and figure, are as inseparable, identical cognitions of identical objects. (Reid's Works, p. 860.) The observations of Platner, on a person born blind, would prove that sight, not touch, is the sense by which we principally obtain our knowledge of figure, and our empirical knowledge of space. (Reid's Works, p. 125, note.) It is self