




















ATTENDING THE EXERCISE OF THE SENSES. 521 
But secondly, the analysis which he offers of this act of mind, as usually per- 
formed by man, only professes to resolve the act, which Rem called Perception, and 
regarded as an ultimate fact, into other principles or laws of thought, which Dr 
Brown himself regards as ultimate facts; particularly into the principle that “ we 
must suppose a cause for all our feelings” (vol. i., p. 565) ; the “ intuitive belief” that 
what has been as an antecedent, will be followed by what has been as a consequent” 
(do., p. 514); the notion of 7ime; the belief in the Suggestions of Memory (do., 
p- 553); and the principle of Association or Suggestion (do., p. 565). “I do not 
conceive,” says he, “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 ac- 
customed events, as a sign of a new antecedent, and of that equally general prin- 
ciple of association, by which feelings that have frequently co-existed flow together, 
and constitute afterwards one complex whole.”—(Vol. i., p. 518.) 
The fact that notions are formed in the Mind of the properties of Matter, per- 
fectly distinct from the sensations which excited them, and to be explained only 
by reference (sooner or later) to what we call Intuition, remains, therefore, as 
Rew stated it; and is indeed strongly illustrated and confirmed by the elaborate 
analysis of the mode of their formation, attempted by Dr Brown. 
On the other hand, a fundamental part of the doctrine of Kant, as I under- 
stand it, and to which Sir Wizt1Am HamitTon is disposed to assent, is, that the 
notion of Extension or Space, which Mr Stewart thought it important to distin- 
guish from the other primary qualities, as what he called one of the Mathemati- 
cal affections of Matter, ought to be regarded as a necessary condition, or native 
element or form of thought ; and that a belief in the existence of “an extended 
world, external to the mind and even to the organism, is not a faith blindly 
created, or instinctively determined, on occasion of a sensation; but exists in, or 
as a constituent of, Perception proper, as an act of Intuition or immediate know- 
ledge.” —(Collected Works of Retp, p. 883.) 
Whether this is really an improvement on the doctrine which he states, in 
connection with it, as that of Dr Rem [viz., “that on occasion of a Sensation, 
along with a notion or conception, constituting the Perception proper, there is 
blindly created in us, or instinctively determined, an invincible belief in its exist- 
ence” |, or whether this distinction is really verbal, I do not presume to decide; 
_ but I think it must be admitted, that this opinion is truly an addition to the 
statement of Rem, and does not stand opposed to it; inasmuch as Rem says only, 
© that the conception and belief are the work of Nature;” and this, of course, 
does not exclude the evidence that may be adduced in favour of any particular 
mode, in which we may suppose that Nature accomplishes the work; as, indeed, 
we have already seen that both Stewart and Brown supposed it to be performed 
VOL. XX. PART IV. 7B 
