THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 67 



which I can conceive as existing forever in a state of quiescence, without 

 any thoughts at all. But what this being is, though it is myself, I have no 

 knowledge, other than the series of its states of consciousness. As bodies 

 manifest themselves to me only through the sensations of which I regard 

 them as the causes, so the thinking principle, or mind, in my own nature, 

 makes itself known to me only by the feelings of which it is conscious. I 

 know nothing about myself, save my capacities of feeling or being con- 

 scious (including, of course, thinking and willing) : and were I to learn 

 any thing new concerning my own nature, I can not with my present facul- 

 ties conceive this new information to be any thing else, than that I have 

 some additional capacities, as yet unknown to me, of feeling, thinking, or 

 willing. 



Thus, then, as body is the unsentient cause to which we are naturally 

 prompted to refer a certain portion of our feelings, so mind may be de- 

 scribed as the sentient subject (in the scholastic sense of the term) of all 

 feelings ; that which has or feels them. But of the nature of either body 

 or mind, further than the feelings which the former excites, and which the 

 latter experiences, we do not, according to the best existing doctrine, know 

 any thing; and if any thing, logic has nothing to do with it, or with the 

 manner in which the knowledge is acquired. With this result we may 

 conclude this portion of our subject, and pass to the third and only remain- 

 ing class or division of Namable Things. 



III. Attributes : axd, first. Qualities. 



§ 9. From what has already been said of Substance, what is to be said 

 of Attribute is easily deducible. For if we know not, and can not know, 

 anything of bodies but the sensations which they excite in us or in others, 

 those sensations must be all that we can, at bottom, mean by their attri- 

 butes ; and the distinction which we verbally make between the properties 

 of things and the sensations we receive from them, must originate in the 

 convenience of discourse rather than in the nature of Avhat is signified by 

 the terms. 



Attributes are usually distributed under the three heads of Quality, 

 Quantity, and Relation. We shall come to the two latter presently : in the 

 first place we shall confine ourselves to the former. 



Let us take, then, as our example, one of what are termed the sensible 

 qualities of objects, and let that example be whiteness. When we ascribe 

 whiteness to any substance, as, for instance, snow ; when Ave say that snow 

 has the quality whiteness, what do we really assert? Simply, that when 

 snow is present to our organs, Ave have a particular sensation, which Ave 

 are accustomed to call the sensation of Avhite. But hoAV do I knoAv that 

 snow is present? Obviously by the sensations Avhich I derive from it, and 

 not otherAvise. I infer that the object is present, because it gives me a 

 certain assemblage or series of sensations. And Avhen I ascribe to it the 

 attribute whiteness, my meaning is only, that, of the sensations composing 

 this group or series, that Avhich I call the sensation of white color is one. 



This is one view which may be taken of the subject. But there is also 

 another and a different view. It may be said, that it is true Ave knoto noth- 

 ing of sensible objects, except the sensations they excite in us ; that the 

 fact of our receiving from snow the particular sensation Avhich is called a 

 sensation of white, is the ground on Avhich Ave ascribe to that substance the 

 quality AA'hiteness ; the sole proof of its possessing that quality. But be- 

 cause one thing may be the sole evidence of the existence of another thing, 



