tive perception may seem less necessary to them than to any other race of animals. Before it could be of any use to them, observation and experience may, by the known principle of the association of ideas, have sufficiently connected in their young minds each visible object with the corresponding tangible one which it is fitted to represent. Nature, it may be said, never bestows upon any animal any faculty which is not either necessary or useful, and an instinct of this kind would be altogether useless to an animal which must necessarily acquire the knowledge which the instinct is given to supply, long before that instinct could be of any use to it. Children, however, appear at so very early a period to know the distance, the shape, and magnitude of the different tangible objects which are presented to them, that I am disposed to believe that even they may have some instinctive perception of this kind; though possibly in a much weaker degree than the greater part of other animals. A child that is scarcely a month old, stretches out its hands to feel any little plaything that is presented to it. It distinguishes its nurse, and the other people who are much about it, from strangers. It clings to the former, and turns away from the latter. Hold a small looking-glass before a child of not more than two or three months old, and it will stretch out its little arms behind the glass, in order to feel the child which it sees, and which it imagines is at the back of the glass. It is deceived, no doubt; but even this sort of deception sufficiently demonstrates that it has a tolerably distinct apprehension of the ordinary perspective of Vision, which it cannot well have learnt from observation and experience."

LECTURE XXIX.

THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY.

II. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

HAVING, in our last Lecture, concluded the consideration of External Perception, I may now briefly recapitulate certain results of the discussion, and state in what principal respects the doctrine I would maintain, differs from that of Reid and Stewart, whom I suppose always to hold, in reality, the system of an Intuitive Perception.

Recapitulation. Principal points of difference between the Author's doctrine of Perception, and that of Reid and Stewart.

1. In regard to the relation of the external object to the sen

ses.

In the first place, in regard to the relation of the external object to the senses. The general doctrine on this subject is thus given by Reid: "A law of our nature regarding perception is, that we perceive no object, unless some impression is made upon the organ of sense, either by the immediate application of the object, or by some medium which passes between the object and the organ. In two of our senses, viz., Touch and Taste, there must be an immediate application of the object to the organ. In the other three, the object is perceived at a distance, but still by means of a medium, by which some impression is made upon the organ."

Now this, I showed you, is incorrect. The only object ever perceived is the object in immediate contact,-in immediate relation, with the organ. What Reid, and philosophers in general, call the distant object, is wholly unknown to Perception; by reasoning we may connect the object perceived with certain antecedents, — certain causes; but these, as the result of an inference, cannot be the objects of perception. The only objects of perception are in all the senses equally immediate. Thus the object of my vision at present is not the paper or letters at a foot from my eye, but the rays of light reflected from these upon the retina. The object of your hearing is

1 Intellectual Powers, Essay ii. c. ii. [Works, p. 247. - ED.]

In all the senses, the external object in contact with the organ.

2. In regard to the number and consecution of the elementary phænomena.

not the vibrations of my larynx, nor the vibrations of the intervening air; but the vibrations determined thereby in the cavity of the internal ear, and in immediate contact with the auditory nerves. In both senses, the external object perceived is the last effect of a series of unperceived causes. But to call these unperceived causes the object of perception, and to call the perceived effect, the real object, only the medium of perception, is either a gross error or an unwarrantable abuse of language. My conclusion is, therefore, that, in all the senses, the external object is in contact with the organ, and thus, in a certain signification, all the senses are only modifications of Touch. This is the simple fact, and any other statement of it is either the effect or the cause of misconception. In the second place, in relation to the number and consecution of the elementary phænomena, —it is, and must be, admitted, on all hands, that perception must be preceded by an impression of the external object on the sense; in other words, that the material reality and the organ must be brought into contact, previous to, and as the condition of, an act of this faculty. On this point there can be no dispute. But the case is different in regard to the two following. It is asserted by philosophers in general: -1°. That the impression made on the organ must be propagated to the brain, before a cognition of the object takes place in the mind, in other words, that an organic action must precede and determine the intellectual action; and, 2°. That Sensation Proper precedes Perception Proper. In regard to the former assertion,—if by this were only meant, that the mind does not perceive external objects out of relation to its bodily organs, and that the relation of the object to the organism, as the condition of perception, must, therefore, in the order of nature, be viewed as prior to the cognition of that relation, no ob jection could be made to the statement. But if it be intended, as it seems to be, that the organic affection precedes in the order of time the intellectual cognition,of this we have no proof whatever. The fact as stated would be inconsistent with the doctrine of an intuitive perception; for if the organic affection were chronologically prior to the act of knowledge, the immediate perception of an object different from our bodily senses would be impossible, and the external world would thus be represented only in the subjective affections of our own organism. It is, therefore, more correct to hold, that the corporeal move

Common doctrine of philosophers regarding the organic impression.

In what respect inaccurate.

-

Relation of Sensation proper to Perception proper.

ment and the mental perception are simultaneous; and in place of holding that the intellectual action commences after the bodily has terminated, in place of holding that the mind is connected with the body only at the central extremity of the nervous system, it is more simple and philosophical to suppose that it is united with the nervous system in its whole extent. The mode of this union is of course inconceivable: but the latter hypothesis of union is not more inconceivable than the former; and, while it has the testimony of consciousness in its favor, it is otherwise not obnoxious to many serious objections to which the other is exposed. In regard to the latter assertion, viz., that a perception proper is always preceded by a sensation proper, this, though maintained by Reid and Stewart, is even more manifestly erroneous than the former assertion, touching the precedence of an organic to a mental action. In summing up Reid's doctrine of Perception, Mr. Stewart says: "To what does the statement of Reid amount? Merely to this: that the mind is so formed, that certain impressions produced on our organs of sense by external objects, are followed by correspondent sensations; and that these sensations (which have no more resemblance to the qualities of matter, than the words of a language have to the things they denote) are followed by a perception of the existence and qualities of the bodies by which the impressions are made.” 1 1 You will find in Reid's own works expressions which, if taken literally, would make us believe that he held perception to be a mere inference from sensation. Thus: "Observing that the agreeable sensation is raised when the rose is near, and ceases when it is removed, I am led, by my nature, to conclude some quality to be in the rose, which is the cause of this sensation. This quality in the rose is the object perceived; and that act of my mind, by which I have the conviction and belief of this quality, is what in this case I call perception." I have, however, had frequent occasion to show you that we must not always interpret Reid's expressions very rigorously; and we are often obliged to save his philosophy from the consequences of his own loose and ambiguous language. In the present instance, if Reid were taken at his word, his perception would be only an instinctive belief, consequent on a sensation, that there is some unknown external quality the cause of the sensation. Be this, however, as it may, there is no more ground for holding that sensation precedes perception, than for holding that perception precedes sensation. In fact, both exist only as they coëxist. They do not indeed always coëxist in the same degree of intensity, but they

1 Elements, vol. i. c. ii. § 3. Works, vol. ii. p. 111. 2 Intell. Powers, Essay ii. c. xvi. Works. p. 310.

are equally original; and it is only by an act, not of the easiest abstraction, that we are able to discriminate them scientifically from each other.1

The faculty of SelfConsciousness.

So much for the first of the two faculties by which we acquire knowledge, the faculty of External Perception. The second of these faculties is Self-consciousness, which has likewise received, among others, the name of Internal or Reflex Perception. This faculty will not occupy us long, as the principal questions regarding its nature and operation have been already considered, in treating of Consciousness in general, 2

Self-Consciousness a branch of the Presentative Faculty.

3

I formerly showed you that it is impossible to distinguish Percep tion, or the other Special Faculties, from Consciousness, in other words, to reduce Consciousness itself to a special faculty; and that the attempt to do so by the Scottish philosophers is self-contradictory. I stated to you, however, that though it be incompetent to establish a faculty for the immediate knowledge of the external world, and a faculty for the immediate knowledge of the internal, as two ultimate powers, exclusive of each other, and not merely subordinate forms of a higher immediate knowledge, under which they are comprehended or carried up into one, I stated, I say, that though the immediate knowledges of matter and of mind. are still only modifications of consciousness, yet that their discrimination, as subaltern faculties, is both allowable and convenient. Accordingly, in the scheme which I gave you of the distribution of Consciousness into its special modes, I distinguished a faculty of External, and a faculty of Internal, Apprehension, constituting together a more general modification of consciousness, which I called the Acquisitive or Presentative or Receptive Faculty.

Philosophers less divided in their opinions touching Selfconsciousness than in regard to Perception.

In regard to Self-consciousness, the faculty of Internal Experience, philosophers have been far more harmonious than in regard to External Perception. In fact, their differences touching this faculty originate rather in the ambiguities of language, and the different meanings attached to the same form of expression, than in any fundamental opposition of opinion in regard to its reality and nature. It is admitted equally by all to exist and to exist as a source of knowledge; and the supposed differences of philosophers in this respect, are, as I shall show you, mere errors in the historical statement of their opinions.

1 Compare Reid's Works, Note D*, p. 882 et seq.-ED.

2 See above, lect. xi. et seq.-ED.

3 See above, lect xiii. p. 155, et seq. — ED.