THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION 253 



cient to convince one that the smell, and the 

 taste, and the yellowness, of which we become 

 aware when an orange is smelt, tasted, and seen, 

 are as completely states of our consciousness as is 

 the pain which arises if the orange happens to be 

 too sour. Nor is it less clear that every sound is 

 a state of the consciousness of him who hears it. 

 If the universe contained only blind and deaf 

 beings, it is impossible for us to imagine but that 

 darkness and silence should reign everywhere. 



It is undoubtedly true, then, of all the simple 

 sensations that, as Berkeley says, their " esse is 

 percipi" their being is to be "perceived or 

 known." But that which perceives, or knows, is 

 termed mind or spirit ; and therefore the know- 

 ledge which the senses give us is, after all, a know- 

 ledge of spiritual phenomena. 



All this was explicitly or implicitly admitted, 

 and, indeed, insisted upon, by Berkeley's contem- 

 poraries, and by no one more strongly than by 

 Locke, who terms smells, tastes, colours, sounds, 

 and the like, " secondary qualities," and observes, 

 with respect to these " secondary qualities," that 

 "whatever reality we by mistake attribute to 

 them [they] are in truth nothing in the objects 

 themselves." 



And again : " Flame is denominated hot and 

 light ; snow, white and cold ; and manna, white 

 and sweet, from the ideas they produce in us ; 

 which qualities are commonly thought to be the 



