70 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



irrelevant to the science of logic. In these so-called 

 perceptions, or direct recognitions by the mind of 

 objects, whether physical or spiritual, which are 

 external to itself, I can see only cases of belief; but 

 of belief which claims to be intuitive, or independent 

 of external evidence. When a stone lies before me, I 

 am conscious of certain sensations which I receive 

 from it ; but when I say that these sensations come 

 to me from an external object which I perceive, the 

 meaning of these words is, that receiving the sensa- 

 tions, I intuitively believe that an external cause of 

 those sensations exists. The laws of intuitive belief, 

 and the conditions under which it is legitimate, are 

 a subject which, as we have already so often remarked, 

 belongs not to logic, but to the higher or transcendental 

 branch of metaphysics. 



To the same region of speculation belongs all 

 that can be said respecting the distinction which 

 the German metaphysicians and their French and 

 English followers, (among whom Mr. Whewell is one 

 of the most distinguished,) so elaborately draw between 

 the acts of the mind and its merely passive states ; 

 between what it receives from, and what it gives to, 

 the crude materials of its experience. I am aware 

 that with reference to the view which those writers 

 take of the primary elements of thought and know- 

 ledge, this distinction is fundamental. But for our 

 purpose, which is to examine, not the original ground- 

 work of our knowledge, but how we come by that por- 

 tion of it which is not original ; the difference between 

 active and passive states of mind is of secondary 

 importance. For us, they all are states of mind, they 

 all are feelings ; by which, let it be said once more, I 

 mean to imply nothing of passivity, but simply that 

 they are psychological facts, facts which take place in 



