X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 253 



suffice to convince any one possessed of sound reason- 

 ing faculties, that it is as absurd to suppose that 

 muskiness is a quality inherent in one plant, as it 

 would be to imagine that pain is a quality inherent 

 in another, because we feel pain when a thorn pricks 

 the finger. 



Even the common -sense philosopher, par excel- 

 lence, says of smell : "It appears to be a simple and 

 original affection or feeling of the mind, altogether 

 inexplicable and unaccountable. It is indeed impos- 

 sible that it can be in any body : it is a sensation, and 

 a sensation can only be in a sentient thing." ] 



That which is true of muskiness is true of every 

 other odour. Lavender -smell, clove-smell, garlic- 

 smell, are, like " muskiness," names of states of con- 

 sciousness, and have no existence except as such. 

 But, in ordinary language, we speak of all these 

 odours as if they were independent entities residing 

 in lavender, cloves, and garlic ; and it is not without 

 a certain struggle that the false metaphysic of so- 

 called common sense, thus ingrained in us, is expelled. 



For the present purpose, it is unnecessary to in- 

 quire into the origin of our belief in external bodies, 



1 " An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common 

 Sense," chap. ii. 2. Reid affirms that " it is genius, and not the want 

 of it, that adulterates philosophy, and fills it with error and false 

 theory ;" and no doubt his own lucubrations are free from the small- 

 est taint of the impurity to which he objects. But, for want of 

 something more than that sort of "common sense," which is very 

 common and a little dull, the contemner of genius did not notice that 

 the admission here made knocks so big a hole in the bottom of 

 " common sense philosophy," that nothing can save it from founder- 

 ing in the dreaded abyss of Idealism. 



