58 NAMES AND PKOPOSITIONS. 



it does not follow that the two are one and the same. The attribute white- 

 ness (it may be said) is not the fact of receiving the sensation, but some- 

 thing in the object itself; a power inherent in it; something in virtue of 

 which the object produces the sensation. And when we affirm that snow 

 possesses the attribute whiteness, we do not merely assert that the pres- 

 ence of snow produces in us that sensation, but that it does so through, 

 and by reason of, that power or quality. 



For the purposes of logic it is not of material importance which of these 

 opinions we adopt. The full discussion of the subject belongs to the other 

 department of scientific inquiry, so often alluded to under the name of met- 

 aphysics ; but it may be said here, that for the doctrine of the existence of 

 a peculiar species of entities called qualities, I can see no foundation ex- 

 cept in a tendency of the human mind which is the cause of many delu- 

 sions. I mean, the disposition, wherever we meet with two names which 

 are not precisely synonymous, to suppose that they must be the names of 

 two different things ; whereas in reality they may be names of the same 

 thing viewed in two different lights, or under different suppositions as to 

 surrounding circumstances. Because quality and sensation can not be put 

 indiscriminately one for the other, it is supposed that they can not both 

 signify the same thing, namely, the impression or feeling with which we 

 are affected through our senses by the presence of an object; though there 

 is at least no absurdity in supposing that this identical impression or feel- 

 ing may be called a sensation when considered merely in itself, and a quali- 

 ty when looked at in relation to any one of the numerous objects, the pres- 

 ence of which to our organs excites in our minds that among various other 

 sensations or feelings. And if this be admissible as a supposition, it rests 

 with those who contend for an entity joer se called a quality, to show that 

 their opinion is preferable, or is any thing in fact but a lingering remnant 

 of the old doctrine of occult causes ; the very absurdity which Moliere so 

 happily ridiculed when he made one of his pedantic physicians account for 

 the fact that opium produces sleep by the maxim. Because it has a soporific 

 virtue. 



It is evident that when the physician stated that opium has a soporific 

 virtue, he did not account for, but merely asserted over again, the fact that 

 it produces sleep. In like manner, when we say that snow is white because 

 it has the quality of whiteness, we are only re-asserting in more technical 

 language the fact that it excites in us the sensation of white. If it be said 

 that the sensation must have some cause, I answer, its cause is the presence 

 of the assemblage of phenomena which is termed the object. When we 

 have asserted that as often as the object is present, and our organs in their 

 normal state, the sensation takes place, we have stated all that we know 

 about the matter. There is no need, after assigning a certain and intelli- 

 gible cause, to suppose an occult cause besides, for the purpose of enabling 

 the real cause to produce its effect. If I am asked, why does the presence 

 of the object cause this sensation in me, I can not tell: I can only say that 

 such is my nature, and the nature of the object ; that the fact forms a part 

 of the constitution of things. And to this we must at last come, even after 

 interpolating the imaginary entity. Whatever number of links the chain 

 of causes and effects may consist of, how any one link produces the one 

 which is next to it, remains equally inexplicable to us. It is as easy to 

 comprehend that the object should produce the sensation directly and at 

 once, as that it should produce the same sensation by the aid of something 

 else called the poioer of producing it. 



