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Philosophy," failed because lie attacked the scientific doc- 

 trine instead of the unphilosophic inference. Out of sheer 

 fright at what he considered the conspicuous absurdity of 

 Berkeley's position, Reid maintained that we do know 

 objects per sc ; that in every act of perception the objec- 

 tive reality is immediately given in consciousness. Reid 

 laid great stress upon Locke's distinction, useful in some 

 respects, between the primary and secondary qualities of 

 matter, and held that we know the first in themselves, 

 although we know the second only in their effects upon 

 our consciousness. Thus, while admitting that redness is 

 only the name of a state of consciousness produced in us 

 by an unknown external agent, Eeid insisted that, on the 

 other hand, in our consciousness of weight or resistance 

 we know the external agent itself, and not merely a state 

 of consciousness. Plausible as this opinion appeared, not 

 only to the superficial Reid, but to that much abler though 

 rather fragmentary thinker, Sir William Hamilton, 1 it is 

 nevertheless irreconcilable with some very obvious psycho- 

 logical facts. To cite one or two examples from Mr. 

 Spencer's " Principles of Psychology " : " The same weight 

 produces one kind of feeling when it rests on a passive 

 portion of the body, and another kind of feeling when sup- 

 ported at the end of the outstretched arm." In which of 

 these cases, then, do we know the real objective weight? 

 We cannot know it in both, since in that case the sub- 

 stance of the two cognitions would be the same. Again, 

 if one hand is laid palm downwards upon the table, and 

 " a knuckle of the other hand is thrust down with some force 

 on the back of it, there results a sensation of pain in the 

 back of the hand, a sensation of pressure in the knuckle, 

 and a sensation of muscular tension in the active arm. 

 Which of these sensations does the mechanical force in 



i Even the great Locke had not freed himself from this error. See the 

 Essay on Human Understanding, book ii. chap. viii. 



