Chapter XVI: Part 16

The infant stretches out his arm for the first time, by that volition without a known object, which is either a mere instinct, or very near akin to one,--this motion is accompanied with a certain feeling,--he repeats the volition which moves his arm fifty or one thousand times, and the same progress of feeling takes place during the muscular action. In this repeated progress, he feels the truth of that intuitive proposition, which, in the whole course of the life that awaits him, is to be the source of all his expectations, and the guide of all his actions,--the simple proposition, that _what has been_ as an antecedent, will be followed by what has been as a consequent. At length he stretches out his arm again, and instead of the accustomed progression, there arises, in the resistance of some object opposed to him, a feeling of a very different kind which, if he persevere in his voluntary effort, increases gradually to severe pain, before he has half completed the usual progress. There is a difference, therefore, which we may, without any absurdity, suppose to astonish the little reasoner; for the expectation of similar consequents, from similar antecedents, is observable even in his earliest actions, and is probably the result of an original law of mind, as universal, as that which renders certain sensations of sight and sound the immediate result of certain affections of our eye or ear. To any being, who is thus impressed with belief of similarities of sequence, a different consequent necessarily implies a difference of the antecedent. In the case at present supposed, however, the infant, who as yet knows nothing but himself, is conscious of no previous difference; and the feeling of resistance seems to him, therefore, something unknown, which has its cause in something that is not himself.

I am aware, that the application to an infant, of a process of reasoning expressed in terms of such grave and formal philosophic nomenclature, has some chance of appearing ridiculous. But the _reasoning_ itself is very different from the _terms_ employed to express it, and is truly as simple and natural, as the terms, which our language obliges us to employ in expressing it, are abstract and artificial. The infant, however, in his feeling of similarity of antecedents and consequents, and of the necessity, therefore, of a new antecedent, where the consequent is difficult, has the _reasoning_, but not the _terms_. He does not form the proposition as universal, and applicable to cases that have not yet existed; but he _feels_ it in every particular case, as it occurs. That he does truly reason, with at least as much subtility, as is involved in the process now supposed, cannot be doubted by those who attend to the manifest results of his little inductions, in those acquisitions of knowledge, which show themselves in the actions, and, I may say, almost in the very looks of the little reasoner,--at a period long before that to which his own remembrance is afterwards to extend, when, in the maturer progress of his intellectual powers, the darkness of eternity will meet his eye alike, whether he attempt to gaze on the past, or on the future; and the wish to know the events, with which he is afterwards to be occupied and interested, will not be more unavailing, than the wish to retrace events, that were the occupation and interest of the most important years of his existence.

Then,

“So--when the mother, bending o'er his charms,
Clasps her fair nurseling in delighted arms;--
With sparkling eye the blameless plunderer owns
Her soft embraces and endearing tones,
Seeks the salubrious fount with opening lips,
Spreads his inquiring hands, and smiles and sips.”[87]

Even then, many a process of ratiocination is going on, which might have served as an example of _strict logic_ to Aristotle himself, and which affords results, far more valuable to the individual reasoner, than all the contents of all the folios of the crowd of that great logician's scholastic commentators.

That the notions of extension and external resistance, which are thus supposed to be acquired from the progressive contraction of muscles, and the difficulty opposed to their accustomed contraction, which introduces suddenly a new feeling, when all the antecedent feelings had been the same, should be directly combined, only with the sensations of touch, cannot appear wonderful, when we reflect, that it is only in the case of touch, there is that frequent _coexistence_ or immediate succession, which is necessary to the subsequent union. In the case of the acquired perceptions of vision, it might, in like manner, be asked, why is it that we do not smell the exact distance of a rose, as we see its exact distance, as soon as we have turned our eye on the bush on which the rose is growing? And the only answer which can be given, is that there has not been in smell that exact and frequent coexistence of feelings which has occurred in vision. It surely is not more wonderful, therefore, that the same argument should hold in the acquired perceptions of touch, in which the coexistence is still more frequent and exact. When we listen to a flute, our muscles may be contracted as before, or quiescent as before; when the odour of a rose is wafted to us, not a single muscle may be more or less affected. But, without the action of muscles, we cannot grasp a ball, nor press against a resisting body, nor move our hand along its surface. Whatever feelings, therefore, are involved in muscular contraction, may be, or rather I may say, if the common laws of association operate, must be associated with the simple feelings thus constantly coexisting, whatever they may be, which the organ of touch originally affords. To suppose, that, in a case of such frequent coexistence or succession, no association takes place, and that our feelings of touch, are, at this moment, as simple as they were originally, would surely be to suppose the universal influence of the associating principle to be suspended in this particular case.

I have already explained the manner, in which, I suppose, the infant, to obtain the notion of something external and separate from himself, by the interruption of the usual train of antecedents and consequents, when the painful feeling of resistance has arisen, without any change of circumstances, of which the mind is conscious in itself; and the process by which he acquires this notion, is only another form of the very process, which, during the whole course of his life, is involved in all his reasonings, and regulates, therefore, all his conclusions, with respect to every physical truth. In the view which I take of the subject, accordingly, I do not conceive that it is by any peculiar intuition, we are led to believe in the existence of things without. I consider this belief as the effect of that more general intuition, by which we consider a new consequent, in any series of accustomed events, as the sign of a new antecedent, and of that equally general principle of association, by which feelings that have frequently coexisted, flow together, and constitute afterwards one complex whole. There is something which is not ourself, something which is representative of length--something which excites the feeling of resistance to our effort; and these elements combined, are _matter_. But, whether the notion arise in the manner I have supposed, or differently, there can be no doubt that it has arisen, long before the period to which our memory reaches; and the belief of an external world, therefore, whether founded directly on an intuitive principle of belief, or, as I rather think, on associations as powerful as intuition in the period which alone we know, may be said to be an essential part of our mental constitution, at least as far back as that constitution can be made the subject of philosophic inquiry. Whatever it may have been originally, it is now as impossible for us to disbelieve the reality of some external cause of our sensations, as it is impossible for us to disbelieve the existence of the sensations themselves. On this subject, scepticism may be ingenious in vain; and equally vain, I may say, would be the attempted confutation of scepticism; since it cannot affect the serious internal belief of the sceptic, which is the same before as after argument; unshaken by the ingenuity of his own reasonings, or rather, as I have before remarked, tacitly assumed and affirmed in that very combat of argument, which professes to deny it.

It is in vain, that Berkeley asserts his system, with a zeal and acuteness, which might, perhaps, have succeeded in convincing others, if they could only have previously succeeded in convincing himself, not as a speculative philosopher merely, but as a human being, conversant with his kind, acting, and suffering, and remembering, and hoping, and fearing. This, however, was more than mere ingenuity of argument could perform. Even in publishing his work with the sincere desire of instructing and converting others, the great and primary convert was yet to be made, in the converter himself.

In the Life of Berkeley, prefixed to the edition of his collected works, an account is given of a visit which he paid, at Paris, to Malebranche, the celebrated author of a system, in many respects similar to his own. He found him in a weak state of health, but abundantly eager to enter into disputation, on a science which he loved, and especially on his own doctrines, which he loved still more; but the discussion was at last carried on with more vehemence than the feeble bodily frame of Malebranche could bear; and his death was said to be occasioned, or at least hastened, by this unfortunate intellectual combat. When we consider this interview of two illustrious men, each of whom, in accordance with his own system, must have been incapable of any direct knowledge of the existence of the other, the violent reciprocal action of these mutual nonentities, might seem ludicrous, if there were not, in the death of any one, and especially of a philosopher so estimable in every respect as the author of The Search of Truth, something too serious to be consistent with any feeling of levity. It is more suitable, both to the occasion itself, and to our own intellectual weakness, to regard this accidental interview of two philosophers, contending so strenuously against each other, for the truth of doctrines, which rendered the real existence of each, at best, very problematical, as only a striking instance of the readiness with which all the pride of human reason yields itself, as it were, spontaneously and humbly, to the sway of those more powerful principles, which He, who has arranged our mutual constitution, has so graciously accommodated to the circumstances in which He has placed us. The gift of reason itself, that most inestimable of our intellectual gifts, would have been truly, if nothing more had been added to it, a perilous acquisition, to beings not absolutely incapable of error; since these are points on which a single mistake, if there had been no opportunity of repairing it, might have been fatal, not to our happiness merely, but to our very existence. On these points, however, Nature has not left us to a power so fallible, and to indolence, which might forget to exercise even this feeble power. She has given us principles which do not err, and which operate without the necessity of any effort on our part. In the wildest speculative errors, into which we may be led, there is a voice within, which speaks, indeed, only in a whisper, but in a whisper of omnipotence, at which the loud voice that led us astray, is still,--thus operating on our _mind_, as the secret irresistible influence of gravitation operates on our _body_, preserving it, amid all the disorder and irregularity of its spontaneous motions, still attached to that earthly home which has been prepared with every bountiful provision for our temporary residence.

If there were, indeed, any sceptic as to the existence of an external world, who could seriously profess that his practical conduct was in accordance with his speculative disbelief, we might very justly exercise, with respect to his own profession, that philosophic doubt or disbelief, which he recommends. Pyrrho, the great founder of this philosophy, is, indeed, said to have acted so truly on his principles, that if a cart ran against him, or a dog attacked him, or if he came upon a precipice he would not stir a foot to avoid the danger. “But his attendants,” says Dr Reid, “who happily for him, were not so great sceptics, took care to keep him out of harm's way, so that he lived till he was ninety years of age.”[88] In all these cases, we may safely take for granted, that this venerable sceptic, when he exhibited himself with his domestics knew, at least as well as the spectator, the nature of the comedy which he was acting, for their entertainment, and his own imagined glory;--that he could discriminate, with perfect accuracy, the times when it would be _safe_, and the times when it would be _unsafe_, for him to be consistent;--and that he would never feel, in so strong and lively a manner, the force of his own principles, as when he was either absolutely alone, or with attendants within a very few inches of the ground on which he was philosophizing. We are told, accordingly, that when his passions were too strongly roused, to allow him to remember the part which he was acting, he entered with sufficient readiness into his native character of a mere human being. Of this, one ludicrous instance is recorded, in which his anger against his cook so completely got the better, both of his moral and physical philosophy, that, with the spit in his hand, and the meat on it, which had been roasting, he pursued him to the very market-place. Many stories of this sort, however, we may well suppose, would be invented against philosophers, of a class, that at once challenged the opposition of the whole mob of mankind, and afforded subjects of that obvious and easy ridicule, which the mob of mankind, even without the provocation of such a challenge, are always sufficiently ready to seize.

Into a detail of the sceptical system of Berkeley, it is unnecessary to enter at any length; since, notwithstanding the general acuteness which its truly illustrious author has displayed in this, and in all his works, I cannot but consider his _ideal system_, as presenting a very imperfect and inaccurate view, not merely of the real phenomena of the mind, but even of the sceptical argument against the existence of matter. It was not as a sceptic, however, that this most devout and amiable of philosophers, to whom Pope scarcely paid a higher compliment than was strictly due, in ascribing to him “every virtue under heaven,”[89]--it was not as a sceptic that he was desirous of being ranked. On the contrary, I have no doubt that his system seemed to him valuable, chiefly for being, as he conceived, an antidote to scepticism, and that he was far less anxious to display acuteness, than to expose the sophistry of materialism, and to present as he thought, an additional argument for the existence of a divine omnipresent mind, which unquestionably it would have afforded, and an argument too, it must be owned, completely irresistible, if our mere ideas were what he conceived them to be. These, he evidently considered, not as _states_ of the individual mind, but as _separate things_ existing in it, and capable of existing in other minds, but in them alone; and it is in consequence of these assumptions, that his system, if it were to be considered as a system of scepticism, is chiefly defective. But having, as he supposed, these ideas, and conceiving that they did not perish, when they ceased to exist in his mind, since the same ideas recurred at intervals, he deduced from the necessity which there seemed for some _omnipresent mind_, in which they might exist during the intervals of recurrence, the necessary existence of the Deity; and if, indeed, as he supposed, ideas be something different from the mind itself, recurring only at intervals to created minds, and incapable of existing but in mind, the demonstration of some infinite omnipresent mind, in which they exist during these intervals of recurrence to finite minds, must be allowed to be perfect. The precise nature of the argument, and its demonstrative force, if the hypothetical circumstances which Berkeley himself was far from considering as hypothetical, be admitted, have not been sufficiently regarded by philosophers, when they express their astonishment, that a system, which, if not scepticism, is at least so much akin to it, or so favourable, at least, to the general sceptical spirit, should yet have been brought forward, as its truly pious author informs us, for the express purpose of combating scepticism. He is not, indeed, always a very perspicuous unfolder of his own opinions, but in a passage of his third Dialogue, the series of propositions which I have now stated as constituting his demonstration, are delivered by himself, with great distinctness and brevity. “When I deny,” says Philonous to Hylas, “when I deny sensible things, an existence out of the mind, I do not mean _my_ mind in particular, but all minds. Now, it is plain, they have an existence exterior to _my_ mind, since I find them, by experience, to be independent of it. There is, therefore, some other mind wherein they exist during the intervals between the times of my perceiving them, as likewise they did before my birth, and would do after my supposed annihilation. And as the same is true with regard to all other finite created spirits, it necessarily follows, there is an _Omnipresent Eternal Mind_, which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view, in such a manner, and according to such rules, as he himself hath ordained, and are by us all termed the laws of Nature.”[90]

The existence of ideas as separate from the mind, and the permanent existence of these, when they have ceased to exist in the individual mind, are evidently assumptions as gratuitous as the assumption of the external existence of matter itself could have been; or rather, the permanent and independent ideas, are truly _matter_, under another name; and to believe that these foreign independent substances, which pass from mind to mind, exist in the mind, is not to _intellectualize_ matter, but to _materialize_ intellect. A mind containing, or capable of containing something foreign within itself, and not merely one foreign substance, but a multitude of foreign substances, at the same moment, is no longer that simple indivisible existence, which we termed spirit. Any of the elementary atoms of matter is, indeed, more truly spiritual; the very notion of _recipiency_ of any kind, being as little consistent with our notion of mind, as the notion of hardness or squareness.

The whole force of the pious demonstration, therefore, which Berkeley flattered himself with having urged irresistibly, is completely obviated, by the simple denial, that ideas are any thing more than the mind itself affected in a certain manner; since, in this case, our ideas exist no longer than our mind is affected, in that particular manner, which constitutes each particular idea; and, to say that our ideas exist in the divine mind, would thus be to say, only, that our mind itself exists in the divine mind. There is not the sensation of colour, in _addition_ to the mind, nor the sensation of fragrance in _addition_ to the mind; but, according to that juster view of the mental phenomena, which I have repeatedly endeavoured to impress on you, the sensation of colour is the _mind_ existing in a _certain state_, and the sensation of fragrance, is the mind existing in a different state.

The most philosophic scepticism, as to the existence of external things, is unquestionably _that_, which is founded on this very view of the phenomena of the mind. All the terms, which we use to express our knowledge, sensations, perceptions, ideas, notions, propositions, judgments, intuitions, conclusions,--or whatever other terms we may employ to express particular varieties of thought, are significant, it may be said, and truly said, of _states_ or affections of the mind, and of nothing more. What I term my perception of the colour, or softness, or shape, or fragrance, or taste of a peach, is a certain state of my own mind, for my mind surely can be conscious only of its own feelings; or rather, as the consciousness of present feelings is a redundancy of language, my mind, affected in a certain manner, whether it be with what is termed sensation or knowledge, or belief, can still be nothing more than my mind itself affected in a certain manner,--my mind, itself existing in a certain state. Against this argument, I confess that I know no mere argument which can be adduced in opposition,--any more, than I know any mere argument which can be adduced, against the strange conclusions that are most legitimately drawn from the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter, and various other physical and mathematical applications of the notion of infinity. In no one of these cases, however, do we feel our belief shaken;--because it is founded either on associations so early, and strong, and indissoluble, as those which we have been endeavouring to trace, or is not in those, or in principles of direct intuition, in that species of internal revolution which gives to reason itself, in the primary truths on which every argument proceeds, its divine authority; and we only smile at conclusions, in which it is impossible for us to find a single logical error, but which from the constitution of our nature, it is physically impossible for us to admit, or to admit at least, without an instant dissent, which renders our momentary logical admission as nugatory, as if the direct existence of an external world had been established by the clearest logical demonstration.

In one of the Anniversary Orations of Sir William Jones, of which the subject is the philosophy of the Asiatics, he informs us that a system of idolism, very similar to that of Berkeley, is to be found in the metaphysics of Hindostan. The fundamental tenet of one great school of the philosophers of that ancient land of philosophy, is the disbelief of the existence of matter--the phenomena of the seeming material universe, being conceived by them to be only an illusive representation which the Deity presents to the mind, (and which they distinguish by the name of Maja:)--while the opposite species of scepticism is to be found in another sect of the philosophers, who disbelieve the existence of mind, and reduce all the phenomena of thought to material organization. The same subtilty and refinement of scepticism, which have led to the systems of materialism and idolism in our Western World, are to be found, we are told, in the corresponding systems of the East.[91]

Why is it that we are struck with no common emotion on finding, in the metaphysics of that distant country, systems of opinions so similar to our own? Is it that the notion of the immense space, which separates us, unites with our conception, and impresses us, as it were, with the omnipresence of our own intellectual nature,--when we recognize on scenes so remote and in circumstances of society so different, the same thoughts, and doubts, and errors, which have perplexed, and occupied, and delighted ourselves? This recognition, in whatever circumstances it may occur, gives to us a feeling of more than kindred,--a sort of identity with the universal nature of man, in all its times and places. The belief which others share with us seems to be our own belief which has passed from each to each, or is present to all, like those permanent ideas of which Berkeley speaks, that quit one intellect to exist in another. We cannot separate the thought which we remember from the notion of the mind which we remember to have conceived it;--and it seems to us, therefore, not as if _similar_ doubts and errors, but almost as if the _very_ doubts and errors of our own mind, and its ardour of inquiry, and frequent disappointments, and occasional, but rare felicities of discovery, had spread and renewed themselves in a remote existence. It is this recognition of our common nature, which gives the chief interest to scenes that have been occupied with the passions of beings like ourselves. The mountains, which the Titans were fabled to have heaped up in their war against Jupiter, must have excited even in the most devout believers of Grecian mythology, emotions far less ardent and immediate, than the sight of the humbler cliffs, at which the small Spartan host, and their gallant leader, devoted themselves in the defensive war against the Persian invader. The races of men may perish, but the remembrance of them still lives imperishable, and seems to claim kindred with us, as often as we tread the same soil, or merely think of those who have trod it.

“Turn thy sight eastward, o'er the time-hush'd plains,
Now graves of vanish'd empire, once gleam'd o'er
From flames on hallow'd altars, hail'd by hymns
Of seers, awakeners of the worshipp'd Sun!
Ask silent Tigris--Bid Euphrates tell
Where is the grove-crown'd Baal, to whose stern frown
Bow'd haughty Babylon?--Chaldea, famed
For star-taught sages,--hard Phenicia's sons.
Fierce fear-surmounting curbers of the deep,
Who stretch'd a floating sceptre o'er the seas,
And made mankind one empire?--Where is now
Egypt's wide-homag'd _Isis_?--where the _Thors_,
That shook the shakers of the Roman world?”

The very gods of all these countries have perished, but the mortals who bent the knee before them still survive in the immortality of our common nature,--in that universal interest which gives to us a sort of intellectual existence in scenes and times the most remote, and makes the thoughts and emotions of others as it were a part of our own being,--uniting the past, the present, and the future, and blending man with man wherever he is to be found.

FOOTNOTES:

[87] _Darwin's Botanic Garden, Canto III. v. 353-4, and 357-360._

[88] Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, chap. i. sect. 5.

[89] Epilogue to the Satires, Dial. II. v. 73.

[90] Three Dialogues, &c. p. 109-110.

[91] The substance of this reference occurs in the Eleventh Anniversary Discourse,--_Works_, v. i. p. 165-6. 4to. _Edit._

LECTURE XXIV.

THE SAME SUBJECT, CONTINUED.

Gentlemen, having stated, in a former Lecture, the reasons which seem to show, that the origin of our notion of extension, and of the notions, which it involves, of figure, magnitude, divisibility, is not to be found in our sense of _touch_, I endeavoured, in my last Lecture, to trace these to their real source,--cautioning you at the same time, with respect to the great difficulty of the inquiry, and the very humble reliance, therefore, which we can have any title to put, on the results of our investigation of a subject so very obscure.

In our present circumstances, when we attempt such an investigation, it is impossible for us to derive even the slightest aid, from remembrance of our original feelings; since _memory_,--which afterwards can look back through so many long and busy years, and comprehend all of life, but the very commencement of it,--sees yet, in this dawn of being, a darkness which it cannot penetrate. We have already formed,--spontaneously, and without the aid of any one,--our little system of physical science, and have, in truth, enriched ourselves with acquisitions, far more important than any which we are afterwards to form, with all the mature vigour of our faculties, and all the splendid aids of traditionary philosophy,--at a time, when we seem scarcely capable of more than of breathing and moving, and taking our aliment, and when the faculties, that leave us so much invaluable knowledge, are to leave us no knowledge of the means, by which we have acquired it.

To the period of our first sensations, therefore, we cannot look back; and, hence, all which remains for us, in an inquiry of this kind, is to consider the circumstances in which the infant is placed, and to guess, as nearly as general analogy will allow us, the nature and the order of the feelings, which, in such circumstances, would arise, in a being possessing the powers and susceptibilities of man, but destitute of all the knowledge which man possesses.

In these first circumstances of life, the infant, of course, cannot know that he has a bodily frame, or a single organ of that frame, more than he can know, that there are other bodies in nature, that act upon his own; and we are not entitled to suppose,--however difficult it may be for us to accommodate our supposition to the true circumstances of the case,--that because _we_, the inquirers, know, that external bodies are pressing on his organ of touch, the little sensitive being is to have any knowledge, but of the mental affections, which these external bodies excite. How the knowledge of any thing more than his own mind is acquired, is, in truth, the very difficulty, which it is our labour to solve.

In conformity with this view, then,--when we look on the infant,--one of the most remarkable circumstances, which strike us, is its tendency to use its muscles, with almost incessant exercise, particularly the muscles of those parts, which are afterwards its principal organs of measurement. Its little fingers are continually closing and opening, and its little arms extending and contracting. The feelings, therefore,--whatever these may be,--which attend the progressive contraction of those parts,--and some feeling unquestionably attends the contraction in all its stages,--must be continually arising in its mind, beginning and finishing, in regular series, and varying exactly, with the quantity of the contraction.

A _succession_ of feelings, however, when remembered by the mind, which looks back upon them, we found to involve, necessarily, the notion of divisibility into separate parts, and, therefore, of length, which is only another name for continued divisibility. Time, in short, is to our conception, a series in constant onward progress, and cannot be conceived by us, but as a progressive series, of which our separate feelings are parts; the remembrance of the events of our life, whenever we take any distant retrospect of them, being like the remembrance of the space, which we have traversed in a journey,--an indistinct continuity of length, as truly divisible, in our conception, into the separate events which we remember, as the space, which we remember to have traversed, into its separate variety of scenes.

_Time_, then, or remembered succession, we found to involve, not metaphorically, as is commonly said, but truly and strictly, in its very essence, the notions of length and divisibility,--the great elements of extension; and whatever other feelings may be habitually and uniformly associated with these, will involve, of course, these elementary notions.

The series of muscular feelings, of which the infant is conscious,--in incessantly closing and opening his little hand,--must, on these principles, be accompanied with the notion,--not, indeed, of the existence of his hand, or of any thing external,--but of a certain length of succession; and each stage of the contraction, by frequent renewal, gradually becomes significant of a particular length, corresponding with the portion of the series. When any hard body, therefore, is placed in the infant's hand,--though he cannot, indeed, have any knowledge of the object, or of the hand,--he yet feels, that he can no longer perform the accustomed contraction,--or, to speak more accurately,--since he is unacquainted with any parts that are contracted, he feels, that he can no longer produce his accustomed series of feelings; and he knows the quantity of contraction, which remained to be performed, or rather the length of the series, which remained to be felt. The place of this remaining length is now supplied by a new feeling, partly muscular, and partly the result of the affection of the compressed organ of touch,--and is supplied by the same feeling, at the same point of the series, as often, as he attempts to renew the contraction, while the body remains within his hand. The _tactual feeling_, therefore,--whatever it may be,--becomes, by this frequent repetition, associated with the notion of that particular progressive series, or length, of which it thus uniformly supplies the place; and at last becomes representative of this particular length, precisely in the same manner, as, in the acquired perceptions of vision, certain shades of colour become representative of distance, to which they have, of themselves, no resemblance or analogy, whatever; and we thus learn to feel length, as we learn to see length,--not directly by the mere affections of our tactual or visual organs, but by the associated notions which they suggest.

If _time_,--as perceived by us in the continued series of our feelings,--do involve conceptual length and divisibility, it seems, indeed, scarcely possible, that, in the circumstances supposed, the notions supposed should not arise,--that the infant should be conscious of a regular series of feelings, in the contraction of its fingers and arms, and yet that portions of this series should not become significant of various proportional lengths;--and, if the notion of certain proportional lengths do truly accompany certain degrees of progressive contraction, it seems equally impossible, according to the general principles of our mental constitution, that the compound tactual and muscular feeling, which must arise in every case, in which any one of these degrees of contraction is impeded, should not become associated with the notion of that particular length, of which it supplies the place, so as at last to become truly representative of it.

In this manner, I endeavoured to explain to you, how our knowledge of the mere length of bodies may have been acquired, from varieties of length that are recognized as coexisting and proximate, and are felt to unite, as it were, and terminate in our sensation of resistance, which interrupts them equally, and interrupts always a greater number of the coexisting truths, in proportion to the size of the body compressed; and, in a similar manner, our notions of the other dimensions of bodies, which are only these varieties of length in different directions. I cannot conclude this summary, however, without recalling to your attention, a very simple experiment, which I requested you to make for yourselves,--an experiment, that, even in the unfavourable circumstances in which it must now be tried, is yet, I conceive, demonstrative of the influence of mere time, as an element of that complex notion, which we have been examining, when the more rapid measurements of vision,--which are confessedly not original but acquired,--are excluded. If, in passing our finger, with different degrees of slowness or rapidity, along the same surface, with our eyes shut,--even though we should previously know the exact boundaries of the extent of surface,--we feel it almost impossible not to believe,--and but for the contrary evidence of vision, could not have hesitated a single moment in believing,--that this extent is greater or less, according as the time employed in performing exactly the same quantity of motion, with exactly the same force of pressure, on the same quantity of our organ of touch, may have been greater or less,--it must surely be admitted, that the notion of the length, which thus uniformly varies with the time, when all other circumstances are the same, is not absolutely independent of the time,--or it must, in like manner, be believed, that our notion of visual distance, which varies with the distribution of a few rays of light on the small expanse of the optic nerve, is yet independent of those faint shades of colouring, according to the mere varieties of which, it seems at one time to lay open to our view a landscape of many miles, and at another time to present to us, as it were before our very eyes, an object of scarcely an inch in diameter. The greater dimness, and diminished size of a few objects in the back ground of a picture, which is in itself one coloured plane of light, does not more truly seem to increase the line of distance of those objects, than, in the other case, the increased slowness of the motion of our hand along any surface, seems to lengthen the line which separates one of its boundaries from the other.

That we now seem to perceive extension, immediately by _touch_, cannot be denied; and, in a case so obscure as this,--with our very limited knowledge, and our very limited power of adding to this knowledge,--it may seem the most prudent, and perhaps even the most suitable,--as it is, without all question, by far the easiest part,--to acquiesce in the opinion, that the perception, which now seems immediate, was so originally,--that the belief of the presence of an external figured body, is, by the very constitution of our nature, attached to a certain affection of the mere organ of touch. But, since there are circumstances,--as we have seen,--which show this opinion, when very nicely examined, to be inadmissible, we may, at least, attempt to proceed a little farther, if we do this with a sufficient sense of the very great difficulty of the attempt, in relation to our power and knowledge, and consequently with a very humble assurance, as to the certainty of any opinion which we may be led to form. To know the mind _well_, is to know its _weaknesses_ as well as its _powers_; and it is precisely in a case of this sort, that he, whose knowledge is least imperfect, will be the best judge of its imperfection, and, therefore, the least disposed to put complete reliance on it in his own speculations,--or to assert it dogmatically, when he offers it, as all opinions, on so very obscure a subject, should be offered, to the inquiry, rather than to the undoubting assent.

The analysis, I own, is one which must require a considerable effort of attention on your part, because it is truly one of the most subtile on which I could call you to enter. But you must be aware, that this subtlety is in the nature of the very inquiry itself; since it is an inquiry into the elements and progressive growth of feelings, which seem to us, at present, simple and immediate, and that the alternatives, therefore, are not those of greater or less subtlety and refinement of analysis, but of attempting the analysis, or abandoning it altogether.

Before proceeding farther, in our inquiry with respect to the origin of the notion of extension, it may, however, be of advantage, to take a short retrospect of the progress which we have already made; for, if we have found nothing more, we have, at least, as I conceive, found reason to reject a considerable part of our former belief on the subject, which, though a negative acquisition, is yet a very important one. Though we should not be able to discover the true source of the notion which we seek, it is something, at least, to know, that we have little reason to expect to find it, where we have uniformly been accustomed to seek it.

In the first place, then, we have seen the fallacy of the supposition, that our knowledge of extension may be easily accounted for, by the similarity in figure of the compressed part of the organ of touch to the compressing body, since the notion of extension is not a state of the material organ, compressed and figured, which, as mere matter, however exquisitely organized, is as little capable of this notion, as of smell, or taste, love or aversion, but, a state of the _mind itself_, which is susceptible of shape or pressure, being as little square, when it perceives a square, as when it perceives a circle; and any affection of which, therefore, may be supposed as much to follow any one shape, as any other shape of the mere external organ. If, indeed, as this explanation most strangely seems to assume, we could be supposed to have any previous knowledge of the shape of our organ of touch, nothing more would be necessary, for we should then have a perfect knowledge of extension, though no other extended body but our own organ of touch were in existence. To refer us to the organ is, however, only to bring the very same difficulty one step nearer, since previously to the application of an external body, the mind has as little knowledge of the shape of its organ of touch, as it has of the body compressing it; and it is manifestly most absurd, to ascribe the origin of our knowledge of extension, to our knowledge of the resemblance in figure of an external body to our organ; since this very knowledge of the resemblance must imply the previous knowledge of the figure of both, and consequently of _that very extension_, which, according to this supposition, must be known to us BEFORE it is known.

In the second place, we have seen, that, if the configuration of the sensorial organ were the only circumstance necessary, to induce, immediately, in mind, the notion of figure, this notion should accompany every sensation of every kind; the smell of a rose, for example, as much as the pressure of a cube or a sphere: for the nervous expansion, in the organ of smell, and in every other organ, is of a certain figure, _before_ sensation, _during_ sensation, and _after_ sensation, as much as the nervous expansion of the organ of touch. And, though we were to confine ourselves wholly to this organ, the nervous matter in it is, at all times, of a certain shape, as much when there is no pressure on it, as when it is exposed to such pressure; yet the mere figure of the organ of touch, is not then accompanied with the mental notion of its figure; nor is this the case, merely when the sense is quiescent, but, in many cases, in which it is affected in the most lively manner; as, for example, when we are exposed to great cold or heat, in which cases, the shape of this very tactual organ, thus strongly affected, is as much unperceived by us, as when there is no affection of it whatever.

Lastly, which is a point of much more importance, because it has relation to the only philosophic view of touch, as the immediate organ of extension; the view, in which the mere configuration of the compressed organ, as similar to that of the compressing body, is laid out of account, and the immediate belief of extension is supposed to depend on the original constitution of the mind, by which its affections have been arranged, so as to correspond with certain affections of the bodily organs; the mental state which constitutes the perception of a _square_, arising immediately when the organ of touch is affected, in a certain manner, as that mental state which constitutes the sensation of the fragrance of a _rose_, arises immediately, when the organ of smell is affected, in a certain manner; this opinion too, philosophic as it is, compared with those which we before considered, though, in truth, it only assumes the point in question, without attempting to solve any difficulty, supposed to be connected with it, we have yet found to be as little tenable, as the opinions that suppose the mental notion of figure to depend on the peculiar figure of the compressed material organ. The consideration which, as I stated in my last Lecture, seems to me decisive on this point, is, that, if touch inform us of extension immediately, as smell informs us of fragrance, sight of colour, and hearing of sound; it must do this in every instance, without relation to particular figure, as smell, sight, and hearing, extend to all odours, hues, and sounds; for it would certainly be, as I said, a very strange abuse of the license of supposition, to imagine that we perceive a square immediately by touch, but not a circle; or a circle, but not a square; or any one figure, but not any other figure. In short, if figure be the direct primary object of touch, as sight is of vision, we should feel immediately every form impressed, as we see immediately every colour. It is only when the figures are very simple and regular, however, such as we might be supposed to have easily learned, in the same manner as we learn, visually, to judge of distances, that we are able to discover them, as it were, immediately, by touch; and, even when we are able, in this manner, to determine the _species of figure_, that is to say, the mere outline of a body, we are rarely able to determine the exact magnitude which that outline comprehends; yet, as our organ must be affected by each part of the compressing surface, by the central parts, as much as by the exterior parts which form its outline, and by these, as much as by the central parts; and as every feeling which the organ directly affords, must be immediate, when there is no change of the position, or other circumstances of the object, that might vary the sensation, we should, if mere touch communicated to us the knowledge supposed, be able to determine, exactly and instantly, the magnitude and figure; or, it is evident, that the determination of magnitude and figure must depend wholly, or in part, on something that is different from touch. The magnitude we are far from being able to discover exactly, even of simple figures; and when the form is very irregular, and we know nothing more, than that a certain body is pressed against our hand,--the magnitude and figure are alike difficult to be discovered; so difficult, that I may safely say, that no one, who makes the experiment, will find, on opening his eyes, that his tactual or intellectual measurement has, in any one case, been exact, or his notion of the figure half so distinct as it now is, after a single glance. Can we then think that it is by mere touch we discover figure, as exactly as by the glance of our mature vision,--that we discover it, in all its varieties, originally by touch, and as accurately at first, as after innumerable trials,--when we discover it, only in a few cases, that are previously familiar to us, and even in these very imperfectly? The _determination_ of the form impressed, in which we are almost conscious of a sort of intellectual measurement, has surely a much greater resemblance to the perceptions, which we term _acquired_, than to those which are _immediate_. In vision, for example, when the original power of that sense has been strengthened and enriched, by the acquisitions which it is capable of receiving from other sources, we see a long line of distance before us; and the _small_ distances with which we are familiar, we distinguish with sufficient accuracy; but, in our visual measurement of _greater_ distances, we are almost certain to err, taking often the less for the greater, and the greater for the less. It is precisely the same in touch. When a small body, which we have never seen, is pressed upon our hand, we are able, if its surface be square, or circular, or of any other form, with which we are well acquainted, to determine its figure, without much hesitation; because we have learned, tactually, to distinguish these regular figures. But, in endeavouring to determine, in this manner, by touch alone, the figure of any irregular body, less familiar to us, though, as a direct object of sense, if touch be the sense of figure, it should be equally and as immediately tangible as the most regular form, we feel a hesitation of the same sort, as when we attempt to ascertain by our eye, the exact distance of a remote object. To know extension or figure, is to know, not one point merely in the surface of a body, but many continuous points; and if, when the surface, is circular, we know these continuous points, and their relation to each other, immediately on pressure, we must know, as immediately, the same points and their relations, though the surface comprehending them, instead of being circular, should be of an outline more irregular. We certainly cannot know this irregular surface to have any extension at all, unless we know some parts of it; and, when the pressure is uniform from every point, and the organ of touch uniform, on which the pressure is made, it would be absurd to suppose, that we know fifty, or eighty, of the hundred points which form the impressing surface, but cannot determine its figure, because we are ignorant of the twenty of fifty remaining points; when these remaining points are acting on our organ of touch, in exactly the same manner as the fifty or eighty which we know, and when, if the surface containing merely the same number of points, had been circular, or of any other single form, as familiar to us, the whole hundred points would have been known to us equally and at once.

When our perceptions of form, then, are so various and irregular, and are more or less quick and precise, exactly as the shape which we endeavour to determine, has more or less resemblance to shapes that are familiar to us, it does not seem too bold an inference to conclude, that the knowledge of figure, which, as all extension that is capable of being perceived by us, must have some boundary, is nothing more than the knowledge of extension, is not the state of mind originally and immediately subsequent to affections of our organs of touch, any more than the perception of distance is the state of mind originally and immediately subsequent to affections of our organ of sight; and the very striking analogy of these two cases, it will be of great importance for you to have constantly in view; as it will render it less difficult for you to admit many circumstances, with respect to touch, which you might otherwise have been slower to conceive. That we should seem to perceive _extension_ immediately by touch, though touch originally, and of itself, could not have afforded this perception, will not then appear more wonderful, than the apparently immediate perception of _distance_ by the eye, which, of itself, originally afforded us no perception of that sort; nor the impossibility of feeling a body, without the notion of it, as extended, be more wonderful than the similar impossibility of separating colour from extension, in the case of distant vision. Above all, the analogy is valuable, as shewing the closeness and indissolubleness of the union, which may be formed of feelings that have in themselves no resemblance. What common properties, could we have conceived in vision, and that absolute blindness, which has never had a single sensation from light! and, yet, it is worthy of remark, that the perceptions of the blind, in consequence of this singular power of association, form truly the most important part of those very perceptions of vision, of which, as a whole, they are unfortunately deprived. We do not merely see with our eyes, what we may have felt with our hands; but our eyes, in the act of vision, have borrowed, as it were, those very sensations.

The proof, that our perception of extension by touch, is not an original and immediate perception of that sense, is altogether independent of the success of any endeavour which may be made, to discover the elements of the compound perception. It would not be less true, that touch does not afford it, though we should be incapable of pointing out any other source, from which it can be supposed to be derived. Of the difficulty of the attempt, and the caution with which we should venture to form any conclusion on the subject, I have already spoken. But the analysis, difficult as it is, is too interesting not to be attempted, even at the risk, or perhaps I should rather say, with the very great probability, of failure.

In such an analysis, however, though we are to proceed with the greatest caution, it may be necessary to warn you, that it is a part of this very caution, not to be easily terrified, by the appearance of paradox, which the result of our analysis may present. This appearance we may be certain, that any analysis which is at all accurate must present, because the very object of the analysis is to shew, that sensations, which appear simple and direct, are not simple,--that our senses, in short, are not fitted, of themselves, to convey that information, which they now appear, and through the whole course of our memory have appeared to us instantly to convey. It is very far, indeed from following, as a necessary consequence, that every analysis of our sensations which affords a paradoxical result, is, therefore, a just one--for error may be extravagant in _appearance_ as well as in _reality_. But it may truly be regarded as a necessary consequence, that every accurate and original analysis of our sensations must afford a result, that, as first stated, will appear paradoxical.