§ 73. On the sensations of hardness and softness.

"Let us next consider," continues the same writer, HARDNESS AND SOFTNESS; by which words we always understand real properties or qualities of bodies, of which we have a distinct conception.

"When the parts of a body adhere so firmly that it cannot easily be made to change its figure, we call it hard; when its parts are easily displaced, we call it soft. This is the notion which all mankind have of hardness and softness they are neither sensations nor like any sensation; they were real qualities before they were perceived by touch, and continue to be so when they are not perceived for if any man will affirm that diamonds were not hard until they were handled, who would reason with him?

"There is, no doubt, a sensation by which we perceive a body to be hard or soft. This sensation of hardness may easily be had by pressing one's hand against a table, and attending to the feeling that ensues, setting aside, as much as possible, all thoughts of the table and its qualities, or of any external thing. But it is one thing to have the sensation, and another to attend to it and make it a distinct object of reflection. The first is very easy; the last, in most cases, extremely difficult.

"We are so accustomed to use the sensation as a sign, and to pass immediately to the hardness signified, that, as far as appears, it was never made an object of thought, either by the vulgar or by philosophers; nor has it a name in any language. There is no sensation more distinct or more frequent; yet it is never attended to, but passes through the mind instantaneously, and serves only to introduce that quality in bodies which, by a law of our constitution, it suggests.

"There are, indeed, some cases, wherein it is no difficult matter to attend to the sensation occasioned by the hardness of a body; for instance, when it is so violent as to occasion considerable pain: then nature calls upon us to attend to it; and then we acknowledge that it is a mere sensation, and can only be in a sentient being. If a man runs his head with violence against a pillar, I appeal to him whether the pain he feels resembles the hardness

of the stone; or if he can conceive anything like what he feels to be in an inanimate piece of matter.

"The attention of the mind is here entirely turned towards the painful feeling; and, to speak in the common language of mankind, he feels nothing in the stone, but feels a violent pain in his head. It is quite otherwise when he leans his head gently against the pillar; for then he will tell you that he feels nothing in his head, but feels hardness in the stone. Hath he not a sensation in this case as well as in the other? Undoubtedly he hath; but it is a sensation which nature intended only as a sign of something in the stone; and, accordingly, he instantly fixes his attention upon the thing signified; and, cannot, without great difficulty, attend so much to the sensation as to be persuaded that there is any such thing distinct from the hardness it signifies.

“ "But, however difficult it may be to attend to this fugitive sensation, to stop its rapid progress, and to disjoin it from the external quality of hardness, in whose shadow it is apt immediately to hide itself: this is what a philosopher by pains and practice must attain, otherwise it will be impossible for him to reason justly on this subject, or even to understand what is here advanced. For the last appeal, in subjects of this nature, must be to what a man feels and perceives in his own mind."

§74. Of certain indefinite feelings sometimes ascribed to the touch.

In connexion with these views on the sensations of touch, it is proper to remark, that certain feelings have been ascribed to that sense which are probably of a character too indefinite to admit of a positive and undoubted classification. Although they clearly have their place in the general arrangement which has been laid down, with the states of mind which we are now considering; that is to say, are rather of an external and material, than of an internal origin; still they do not so evidently admit of an assignment to a particular sense. Those sensations

to which we now refer (if it be proper to use that term in application to them) appear to have their origin in the human system considered as a whole, made up of bones, flesh, muscles, the senses, &c., rather than to be suscepti

ble of being traced to any particular part. Of this de scription are the feelings expressed by the terms uneasi ness, weariness, weakness, sickness, and those of an op posite character, as ease, hilarity, health, vigour, &c.

75. Relation between the sensation and what is outwardly signified. We here return a moment to the subject of the relation between the internal sensation and the outward object; and again repeat that the mental state and the corre sponding outward object are altogether diverse. This view holds good in the case of the secondary, as well as of the primary qualities of matter. Whether we

speak of extension, or resistance, or heat, or colour, or roughness, there are, in all cases alike, two things, the internal affection and the outward quality; but they are utterly distinct, totally without likeness to each other. But how it happens that one thing, which is totally different from another, can nevertheless give us a knowledge of that from which it differs, it would be a waste of time to attempt to explain. Our knowledge is undoubtedly limited to the mere fact.

This is one of those difficult but decisive points in MENTAL PHILOSOPHY, of which it is essential to possess a precise and correct understanding. The letters which cover over the pages of a book are a very different thing from the thought, and the combinations of thought, which they stand for. The accountant's columns of numerals are not identical with the quantities and their relations which they represent. And so in regard to the mind; all its acts are of one kind, and what they stand for is of another. The mind, in all its feelings and operations, is governed by its own laws, and characterizes its efforts by the essential elements of its own nature. Nothing which is seen or heard, nothing which is the subject of taste, or touch, or any other sense, nothing material which can be imagined to exist in any place or in any form, can furnish the least positive disclosure either of its intrinsic nature or of the mode of its action.

What, then, is the relation between the sensation and the outward object, between the perception and the thing perceived? Evidently that of the sign and the thing sig

nified. And as in a multitude of cases, the sign may give a knowledge of its object, without any other grounds of such knowledge than mere institution or appointment, so it is in this. The mind, maintaining its appropriate action, and utterly rejecting the intervention of all images and visible representations, except what are outward and material, and totally distinct from itself both in place and nature, is, notwithstanding, susceptible of the knowledge of things exterior, and can form an acquaintance with the universe of matter.

A misapprehension in this respect, the mistaken supposition of the mind's either receiving actual filmy images from external objects, or being itself transformed into the likeness of such images, has been, in, times past, the source of much confusion and contention. But that opinion, however prevalent it may have been once, is mere hypothesis; it has not the slightest well-founded evidence in its favour. Still we can reject it wholly from our belief, and from all influence on our belief, only by guarding against early associations, by a rigid self-inspection, and by carefully separating the material and the immaterial, the qualities of mind and of matter.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SENSE OF SIGHT.

$76. Of the organ of sight, and the uses or benefits of that sense. Of those instruments of external perception with which a benevolent Providence has favoured us, a high rank must be given to the sense of seeing. If we were restricted in the process of acquiring knowledge to the informations of the touch merely, how many embarrassments would attend our progress, and how slow it would prove! Having never possessed sight, it would be many years before the most. acute and active person could form an idea of a mountain, or even of a large edifice. But by the additional help of the sense of seeing, he not only observes

the figure of large buildings, but is in a moment possessed of all the beauties of a wide and variegated landscape.

The organ of this sense is the eye. On a slight examination, the eye is found to be a sort of telescope, having its distinct parts, and discovering throughout the most exquisite construction. The medium on which this organ acts are rays of light, everywhere diffused, and always advancing, if they meet with no opposition, in direct lines. The eye, like all the other senses, not only receives externally the medium on which it acts, but carries the rays of light into itself; and, on principles purely scientific, refracts and combines them anew.

It does not, however, fall within our plan to give a minute description of the eye, which belongs rather to the physiologist; but such a description, with the statement of the uses of the different parts of the organ, must be to a candid and reflecting mind a most powerful argument in proof of the existence and goodness of the Supreme Being. How wonderful, among other things, is the adaptation of the rays of light to the eye! If these rays were not of a texture extremely small, they would cause much pain to the organ of vision, into which they so rapidly pass. If they were not capable of exciting within us the sensations of colour, we should be deprived of much of that high satisfaction which we now take in beholding surrounding objects; showing forth, wherever they are to be found, the greatest variety and the utmost richness of tints.

§ 77. Statement of the mode or process in visual perception.

In the process of vision, the rays of light, coming from various objects and in various directions, strike, in the first place, on the pellucid or transparent part of the ball of the eye.

If they were to continue passing on precisely in the same direction, they would produce merely one mingled and indistinct expanse of colour. In their progress, however, through the crystalline humour, they are refracted or bent from their former direction, and are distributed to certain focal points on the retina, which is a white, fibrous expansion of the optic nerve.

The rays of light, coming from objects in the field of