THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 67 



8. Body having now been defined the external cause, 

 and (according to the more reasonable opinion) the unknown 

 external cause, to which we refer our sensations ; it remains 

 to frame a definition of Mind. Nor, after the preceding ob- 

 servations, will this be difficult. For, as our conception of a 

 body is that of an unknown exciting cause of sensations, so 

 our conception of a mind is that of an unknown recipient, or 

 percipient, of them ; and not of them alone, but of all our 

 other feelings. As body is understood to be the mysterious 

 something which excites the mind to feel, so mind is the 

 mysterious something which feels and thinks. It is unnecessary 

 to give in the case of mind, as we gave in the case of matter, 



this country of an active interest in metaphysical speculation, been the subject 

 of a greatly increased amount of discussion and controversy ; and dissentients 

 have manifested themselves in considerably greater number than I had any 

 knowledge of when the passage in the text was written. The doctrine has been 

 attacked from two sides. Some thinkers, among whom are the late Professor 

 Terrier, in his Institutes of Metaphysic, and Professor John Grote in his Explo- 

 ratio Philosophica, appear to deny altogether the reality of Noumena, or Things 

 in themselves of an unknowable substratum or support for the sensations 

 which we experience, and which, according to the theory, constitute all our 

 knowledge of an external world. It seems to me, however, that in Professor 

 Grote's case at least, the denial of Noumena is only apparent, and that he does 

 not essentially differ from the other class of objectors, including Mr. Bailey in 

 his valuable Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, and (in spite of 

 the striking passage quoted in the text) also Sir William Hamilton, who con- 

 tend for a direct knowledge by the human mind of more than the sensations 

 of certain attributes or properties as they exist not in us, but in the Things 

 themselves. 



With the first of these opinions, that which denies Noumena, I have, as a 

 metaphysician, no quarrel ; but, whether it be true or false, it is irrelevant to 

 Logic. And since all the forms of language are in contradiction to it, nothing 

 but confusion could result from its unnecessary introduction into a treatise, 

 every essential doctrine of which could stand equally well with the opposite and 

 accredited opinion. The other and rival doctrine, that of a direct perception or 

 intuitive knowledge of the outward object as it is in itself, considered as distinct 

 from the sensations we receive from it, is of far greater practical moment. But 

 even this question, depending on the nature and laws of Intuitive Knowledge, is 

 not within the province of Logic. For the grounds of my own opinion con- 

 cerning it, I must content myself with referring to a work already mentioned 

 An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy; several chapters of 

 which are devoted to a full discussion of the questions and theories relating to 

 the supposed direct perception of external objects. 



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