Herbert Spencer 147 



revealing to us the actinic properties of light, or the chemical 

 composition of crystals, by special modifications of conscious- 

 ness, which modifications are now, of course, unimaginable 

 to us. We have never experienced colour apart from exten- 

 sion, nor an extended object not coloured, and yet these 

 properties can be conceived of as distinct though they cannot 

 be so imagined. But an effective argumentum ad hoTninem 

 may be addressed to Mr. Mill, who tells us he can conceive 

 of two and two making five, for most assuredly such a power 

 transcends the experience of all his ancestors, and will 

 transcend that of his successors to their latest posterity. 

 Indeed, as Mr. Martineau observes,^ 'Experience proceeds 

 and intellect is trained, not by association, but by Dissocia- 

 tion, not by reduction of pluraHties of impression to one, but 

 by the opening out of one into many ; and a true psycho- 

 logical history must expound itself in analytic rather than 

 synthetic terms.' But what is experience ? A stone cannot 

 ' experience,' nor can experience be taken as ultimate. The 

 very acquisition of experience implies innate laws or prin- 

 ciples. Instead of experience being able to account for 

 innate principles, innate principles are needed to explain the 

 acquisition of experience. 



Let us now consider those propositions which are deemed 

 by the mind to be necessary and universal, not from a 

 passive impotence to dissociate two mental images ^ (such as 

 those of colour and extension), but from an active power of 

 positive perception of which the intellect is self-conscious. 

 It requires but a little candid introspection to see how 

 different is the mental declaration with regard to those 

 unimaginable conceivabilities we have noticed, and such 



^ Essays, p. 271. 



2 There is not space in this essay to consider the statements of those 

 who deny that they have such intuitions. There will not be the slightest 

 difficulty, however, in showing, on another occasion, that they contradict 

 themselves. 



