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no addition of internal to internal can ever thicken into an external.

It is here, however, that Hamilton suggests, The mind does not and cannot perceive anything external to itself; but it becomes aware of its own sentient organism on condition of a colour, or a vibration (say), being excited in that organism by one, or other, or all, of the stated five modes; and the remaining world of cognition is thereafter built up by process of experiment, inference, and reasoning. To Hamilton, then, it appears that, though it might be difficult to understand how the mind, with no production before it but a subjective colouring of its own, should be able to perceive outer objects, no such difficulty would exist if the perception concerned, not outer objects, but the nervous system. But it is easy to see that if the nervous system have the advantage of nearness over the outer objects understood here, it is still, even as much as they, an other, an outer; and so, consequently, still separated from the mind, like them, by the whole diameter of being. Nearness in such circumstances is but as the grain of sand that is removed from the mountain while the surveyor measures it. In relation to the nervous system, the subjective affection is no more than it is in relation to other outer objects; and that it is known is intelligible, for it is evidence for itself; but that anything else because of it can-without any further evidence -be added as known, is unintelligible. Let the vibration-to call by that name each of the five respective affections-be A; we acknowledge that we

know A; but is that any reason that we should be credited with a knowledge of B as well? A, the sensation, is evidence for A; but the perception B is a new act, and in its nature very different from, nay, the reverse of, A, and we have still a right to ask, Where is the evidence for this new act B, and how was it performed, or how was its information attained to? To say the mind perceived B because it felt A, is only to say; it is not to reason.

But Hamilton would have said, perhaps, A and B, as referring to the same sentient organism, are in reality identical and not different; the subjective sensation and the objective perception coincide and coinhere in the same identical unit. Yes, we may rejoin, but, when the mind acknowledges that unit as under sensation, it is present to it as to its self; whereas, when the mind acknowledges that unit as under perception, it is absent from it as from its not-self (for to have distinguished it as not-self is equivalent to such estrangement), and the cleft remains as impassable as ever. We acknowledge arrival at the hither side of this cleft—we acknowledge experience of the subjective moment; but we cannot see that arrival at the hither, is equivalent to arrival also at the further side, or that the subjective moment is identical with the objective. There are the two terms still-and apart still: what we want is nexus and connexus; and we want it as much as ever. There is no secondary quality-no sensation-other to Hamilton himself than a mere subjective feeling, and a subjective feeling takes no further than itself. That the mind should undergo

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passions-passion after passion-this is conceivable; but how there should add itself to this passion any nisus on the part of the mind to sally out and cognise its own nervous organism as extended, divided, &c.— or how it should require this passion, and be unable to sally out without this passion-this is inconceivable. Nay, this passion itself is really in the mind; it is not in the tissue, and any question of the tissue would, so far, seem not to have any place. But let us say, that, in the passion, the mind absorbs into itself the nervous net as its and it; how is it then that it (the mind) is immediately forced, by perception, to reject this same net from itself as neither its nor it, but an other, a non-ego? Knowing the sentient organism as the ego, that we should be enabled, so contrariously, to know it as the non-ego, or accepting it in the sensation as A, that we should reject it, at the same time, in the perception as B-it is this recoil of mind. back from matter on to itself, or it is this reflexion from mind to matter this transmutation of non-ego into ego, and again of ego into non-ego-it is this, so to speak, presto-trick that constitutes the difficulty; and, if Hamilton seems to simplify it by moving the two terms nearer each other, he in reality only complicates it by the introduction of a third-a third which only adds its own difficulty, and demands a new explanation of its own.

But Hamilton's favourite sense is sight, and his illustration by predilection light. As we saw on page 85, he considers the sensation the light by which the nervous organism is 'exhibited' in perception;

and the figure, if very luminous so far as the general doctrine is concerned, needs only to be looked at to show, on the question of inner rationale, quite as unsatisfactory as any that might be borrowed from any other sense. The mind, for example, Hamilton would seem to think, though already pervading the membrane of the eye, is quite blind to this membrane till this membrane is lit. When lit, however, the mind, instantly confessing this membrane to be itself, experiences the sensation (colour, &c.); but, as instantly denying this membrane to be itself, it experiences the perception of an extended and divided non-ego. But do not the difficulties remain thus-of how the light exhibits, how the attention is excited, and how the one or the other should be at all necessary? It is simple information that we cannot see in the dark; but what is the meaning of the mind requiring light to see its net by?—what power can light have added to such an energy as the mind there? Nay, one would think that the mind, occupying the same position in both cases, would be less likely to attend to its net when filled and occupied (with light), than when empty and disengaged. Hamilton only doubles the apparatus. As it is to common belief, we have an eye whereby to see things; but as it is to Hamilton, we have an eye whereby to see the eye. Or Hamilton actually postulates an eye behind the eye-not only an eye of the body, but an eye of the mind; excess of light too, it would seem, being not more dazzling and perplexing to the one, than it is dazzling and perplexing to the other.

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Though it is certainly the coloured or lighted ocular membrane that dominates Hamilton, he as certainly, so far as words go, attributes a like function to the other organs of sense. 'All the senses,' he says (Reid's Works, p. 864), 'simply or in combination, afford conditions for the perception of the primary qualities.' Let us for a moment, then, consider the other senses, and see if it be with them, as the illustration would, at least to a certain extent, appear to make it with sight. How is it with smell? On sensation of an odour, does the mind wake up to peruse its Schneiderian membrane? Or taste? On sensation of sapidity, does the mind re-act on, or is it reflected to, the amount of the palate affected by the sapid particles, and as divided and figured by their varying sapidity? Or hearing? On sensation of sound, does the mind, by instant rebound, stand at once by the wall of its own tympanum, objectively cognising the same? Obviously, there is no evidence for any assertion of the affirmative in either of these cases! In touch, again, is it to the skin, and the amount of skin covered, that the sensation proper of smoothness, or of roughness, wetness, dryness, warmness, coldness, directs the mind? Is it not proved by Hamilton himself that touch is a very bungler at guessing the size of the impressing body—a very bungler at extension? Then is not sight too, according to the same authority, but a form of touch? Do we know aught but 'the rays and the living organ in reciprocity?' The rays touch, then, and we have the subjective feeling light; but why should the mind revert

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