84 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



view. It may be said, that it is true we know nothing 

 of sensible objects, except the sensations they excite 

 in us ; that the fact of our receiving from snow the 

 particular sensation which is called a sensation of 

 white, is the ground on which we ascribe to that sub- 

 stance the quality whiteness ; the sole proof of its 

 possessing that quality. But because one thing may 

 be the sole evidence of the existence of another thing, 

 it does not follow that the two are one and the same. 

 The attribute whiteness (it may be said) is not the 

 fact of our receiving the sensation, but something 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 presence 

 of snow produces iu 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 views we adopt. The full 

 discussion of the subject belongs to the department of 

 inquiry so often alluded to under the name of the 

 higher metaphysics ; 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 except 

 in a tendency of the human mind which is the cause 

 of many delusions. I mean, the disposition, wherever 

 we meet with two names which are not precisely syno- 

 nymous, 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, which is as much as to say under different 

 suppositions as to surrounding circumstances. Be- 

 cause quality and sensation cannot be put indiscrimi- 

 nately one for the other, it is supposed that they 



