Dr. WHEVVELL, ON THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 173 



watched the stars, and has only seen them from time to time, considers their circular motion round 

 the pole as a theory, just as he considers the motion of the sun in the ecliptic as a theory, or 

 the apparent motion of the inferior planets round the sun in the zodiac. A person who has 

 compared the measures of different parts of the earth, and who knows that these measures cannot 

 be conceived distinctly without supposing the earth a globe, considers its globular form a fact, 

 just as much as the square form of his chamber. A person to whom the grounds of believing 

 the earth to revolve round its axis and round the sun, are as familiar as the grounds for believino- 

 the movements of the mail-coaches in this country, conceives the former events to be facts, just 

 as steadily as the latter. And a person who, believing the fact of the earth's annual motion, 

 refers it distinctly to its mechanical course, conceives the sun's attraction as a fact, just as he 

 conceives as a fact the action of the wind which turns the sails of a mill. We see then, that 

 in these cases we cannot apply absolutely and exclusively either of the terms. Fact or Theory. 

 Theory and Fact are the elements which correspond to our Ideas and our Senses. The Facts are 

 Facts so far as the Ideas have been combined with the sensations and absorbed in them : the Theories 

 are Theories so far as the Ideas are kept distinct from the sensations, and so far as it is considered 

 as still a question whether they can be made to agree with them. A true Theory is a fact, 

 a Fact is a familiar theory. 



In like manner, if we take the terms Reasoning and Observation ; at first sight thev appear to 

 be very distinct. Our observation of the world without us, our reasonings in our own minds, appear 

 to be clearly separated and opposed. But yet we shall find that we cannot apply these terms abso- 

 lutely and exclusively. I see a book lying a few feet from me : is this a matter of observation ? 

 At first, perhaps, we might be inclined to say that it clearly is so. But yet, all of us, who have 

 paid any attention to the process of vision, and to the mode in which we are enabled to judge 

 of the distance of objects, and to judge them to be distant objects at all, know that this judg- 

 ment involves inferences drawn from various sensations ; — from the impressions on our two eyes ; — 

 from our muscular sensations ; and the like. These inferences are of the nature of reasoning, as much 

 as when we judge of the distance of an object on the other side of a river by looking at it from 

 different points, and stepping the distance between them. Or again : we observe the setting sun 

 illuminate a gilded weathercock ; but this is as much a matter of reasoning as when we observe the 

 phases of the moon, and infer that she is illuminated by the sun. All observation involves inferences, 

 and inference is reasoning. 



11. Even the simplest terms by which the antithesis is expressed cannot be applied : ideas 

 and sensations, thoughts and things, subject and object, cannot in any case be applied absolutely and 

 exclusively. Our sensations require ideas to bind them together, namely, ideas of space, time, num- 

 ber, and the like. If not so bound together, sensations do not give us any apprehension of things 

 or objects. All things, all objects, must exist in space and in time — must be one or many. Now 

 space, time, number, are not sensations or things. They are something different from, and opposed 

 to sensations and things. We have termed them ideas. It may be said they are relations of 

 things, or of sensations. But granting this form of expression, still a relation is not a thing or a 

 sensation ; and therefore we must still have another and opposite element, along with our sensations. 

 And yet, though we have thus these two elements in every act of perception, we cannot designate 

 any portion of the act as absolutely and exclusively belonging to one of the elements. Perception 

 involves sensation, along with ideas of time, space, and the like ; or, if any one prefers the expression, 

 involves sensations along with the apprehension of relations. Perception is sensation, along with 

 such ideas as make sensation into an apprehension of things or objects. 



12. And as perception of objects implies ideas, as observation implies reasoning; so, on tlie 

 other hand, ideas cannot exist where sensation has not been : reasoning cannot go on when there 

 has not been previous observation. This is evident from the necessary order of development of 

 the human faculties. Sensation necessarily exists from the first moments of our existence, and is 



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