298 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [xn. 



the point touched, and seems to exist there. But it 

 is certain that it is not and cannot be there really, 

 because the brain is the sole seat of consciousness ; and, 

 further, because evidence, as strong as that in favour 

 of the sensation being in the finger, can be brought 

 forward in support of propositions which are manifestly 

 absurd. 



For example, the hairs and nails are utterly devoid 

 of sensibility, as everyone knows. Nevertheless, if the 

 ends of the nails or hairs are touched, ever so lightly, we 

 feel that they are^touched, and the sensation seems to be 

 situated in the nails or hairs. Nay more, if a walking- 

 stick a yard long is held firmly by the handle and the 

 other end is touched, the tactile sensation, which is a 

 state of our own consciousness, is unhesitatingly referred 

 to the end of the stick ; and yet no one will say that it 

 is there. 



Let us now suppose that, instead of one pin's point 

 resting agamst the end of my finger, there are two. 

 Each of these can be known to me, as we have seen, 

 only as a state of a thinking mind, referred outwards, or 

 localized. But the existence of these two states, some- 

 how or other, generates in my mind a host of new ideas, 

 which did not make their appearance when only one 

 state was present. 



For example, I get the ideas of co-existence, of 

 number, of distance, and of relative place or direction. 

 But all these ideas are ideas of relations, and imply the 

 existence of something which perceives those relations. 

 If a tactile sensation is a state of the mind, and if the 

 localization of that sensation is an act of the mind, how 

 is it conceivable that a relation between two localized 

 sensations should exist apart from the mind ? It is, I 

 confess, quite as easy for me to imagine that redness 

 may exist apart from a visual sense, as it is to suppose 



