THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES. 77 



should we not have as much reason to believe that 

 it still existed, as we now have ? and if we should not 

 then be warranted in believing it, how can we be so 

 now ? A body, therefore, according to these meta- 

 physicians, is not anything intrinsically different from 

 the sensations which the body is said to produce in 

 us; it is, in short, a set of sensations joined together 

 according to a fixed law. 



These ingenious speculations have at no time in 

 the history of philosophy made many proselytes ; but 

 the controversies to which they have given rise, and 

 the doctrines which have been developed in the 

 attempt to find a conclusive answer to them, have 

 been fruitful of important consequences to the Science 

 of Mind. The sensations (it was answered) which we 

 are conscious of, and which we receive not at random, 

 but joined together in a certain uniform manner, 

 imply not only a law or laws of connexion, but a 

 cause external to our mind, which cause, by its own 

 laws, determines the laws according to which the 

 sensations are connected and experienced. The 

 schoolmen used to call this external cause by the 

 name we have already employed, a substratum; and 

 its attributes (as they expressed themselves) inhered, 

 literally stuck, in it. To this substratum the name 

 Matter is usually given in philosophical discussions. 

 It was soon, however, acknowledged by all who 

 reflected on the subject, that the existence of matter 

 could not be proved by extrinsic evidence. The 

 answer, therefore, now usually made to Berkeley and 

 his followers, is, that the belief is intuitive ; that 

 mankind, in all ages, have felt themselves compelled, 

 by a necessity of their nature, to refer their sensations 

 to an external cause : that even those who deny it in 

 theory, yield to the necessity in practice, and both in 



