56 NAMES AND PEOPOSITIONS. 



authorized to deduce from the effects, any thing concerning the cause, ex- 

 cept that it is a cause adequate to produce those effects? It may, there- 

 fore, safely be laid down as a truth both obvious in itself, and admitted by 

 all whom it is at present necessary to take into consideration, that, of the 

 outward world, we know and can know absolutely nothing, except the sen- 

 sations which we experience from it.* 



§ 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 observations, will this be diflficult. For, as our conception 

 of a body is that of an unknown exciting cause of sensations, so our con- 

 ception 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 under- 

 stood to be the mysterious something which excites the mind to feel, so 

 mind is the mysterious something which feels and thinks. It is imneces- 

 sary to give in the case of mind, as we gave in the case of matter, a par- 

 ticular statement of the skeptical system by which its existence as a Thing 

 in itself, distinct from^the series of what are denominated its states, is call- 

 ed in question. But it is necessary to reraai'k, that on the inmost nature 

 (whatever be meant by inmost nature) of the thinking principle, as well 

 as on the inmost nature of matter, we are, and with our faculties must al- 

 ways remain, entirely in the dark. All which we are aware of, even in our 

 own minds, is (in the words of James Mill) a certain "thread of conscious- 

 ness ;" a series of feelings, that is, of sensations, thoughts, emotions, and 

 volitions, more or less numerous and complicated. There is a something 

 I call Myself, or, by another form of expression, my mind, which I consider 

 as distinct from these sensations, thoughts, etc. ; a something Avhich I con- 

 ceive to be not the thoughts, but the being that has the thoughts, and 



* This doctrine, which is the most complete form of the philosophical theory known as the 

 Kelativitj of Human Knowledge, has, since the recent revival in this country of an active in- 

 terest in metaphysical speculation, been the subject of a greatly increased amount of discussion 

 and controversy ; and dissentients have manifested themselves in considei'ably greater number 

 than I had any knowledge of when the passage in the text was Avritten. 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 Exploratio Philosojifdca, ap- 

 ])ear to deny altogether the reality of Noumena, or Things in themselves — of an unknowable 

 substratum or support for the sensations which we epcperience, and which, according to the 

 theory, constitute all our knowledge of an external world. It seems to me, however, tiiat in 

 Professor Grote's case at least, the denial of Noumena is only apparent, and that he does not 

 essentially diflfer from the other class of objectors, including Mr. Bailey in his valuable Let- 

 ters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, and (in spite of the striking passage quoted in 

 the text) also Sir William Hamilton, who contend 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 concerning it, I must content myself with referring to a 

 work already mentioned — An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosoj)hy ; several 

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

 the supposed direct perception of external objects. 



