40 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



attempt to find a conclusive answer to them, have been fruitful of im- 

 portant consequences to the Science of Mind. The sensations (it was 

 answered) which we are conscious of, and which we receive not at 

 random, but joined together in a certain uniform manner, imply not 

 only a law or laws of connexion, but a cause external to our mind, 

 which cause, by its own laws, determines the laws according to which 

 the sensations are connected and experienced. The schoolmen used 

 to call this external cause by the name we have already employed, a 

 substratum ; and its attributes (as they expressed themselves) inhered, 

 literally stucTi, in it. To this substratum the name Matter is usually 

 given in philosophical discussions. It was soon, however, acknowl- 

 edged by all who reflected on the subject, that the existence of matter 

 could not be proved by extrinsic evidence. The answer, therefore, 

 now usually made to Berkeley and his followers is, that the belief is 

 intuitive ; that mankind, in all ages, have felt themselves compelled, by 

 a necessity of their nature, to refer their sensations to an external 

 cause : that even those who deny it in theory, yield to the necessity in 

 practice, and both in speech, thought, and feeling, do, equally with the 

 vulgar, acknowledge their sensations to be the effects of something ex- 

 ternal to them : this knowledge, therefore, is as evidently intuitive as 

 our knowledge of our sensations themselves is intuitive. And here 

 the question merges in the fundamental problem of transcendental 

 metaphysics ; to which science we leave it. 



But although the extreme doctrine of the Idealist metaphysicians, 

 that objects are nothing but our sensations and the laws which connect 

 them, has appeared to &\v subsequent thinkers to be worthy of assent ; 

 the only point of much real importance is one upon which those meta- 

 physicians are now very generally considered to have made out their 

 case : viz., that all toe know of objects is the sensations which they give 

 us, and the order of the occurrence of those sensations. Kant himself, 

 on this point, is as explicit as Berkeley or Locke. However firmly 

 convinced that there exists an universe of " Things in themselves," 

 totally distinct fi-om the universe of phenomena, or of things as they 

 appear to our senses ; and even when bringing into use the technical 

 expression [Noumcnon) to denote what the thing is in itself, as con- 

 trasted with the representation of it in our minds ; he allows that this 

 representation (the matter of which, he says, consists of our sensations, 

 though the form is given by the laws of the mind itself) is all we know 

 of the object, and that the real nature of the Thing is, and by the con- 

 stitution of our faculties ever must remain, at least in this sublunary 

 existence, an impenetrable mystery to us.* There is not the slightest 



* I have much pleasure in quoting a passage in which this doctrine is laid down in the 

 clearest and strongest terms by M. Cousm, the most distinguished living teacher of German 

 philosophy out of Germany, whose authority on this side of the question is the more valu- 

 able, as his philosophical views are generally those of the post-Kantian movement, repre- 

 sented by Schelling and Hegel, whose tendencies are much more objective and ontological 

 than those of their master, Kant. 



" Nous savons qu'il existe quelque chose hors de nous, parceque nous ne poavons expli- 

 quer nos perceptions sans les rattacher a des causes distinctes de nous-m^mes ; nous savons 

 de plus que ces causes, dont nous ne connaissons pas d'ailleurs I'essence, produisent les 

 effets les plus variables, les plus divers, et m6me les plus contraires, selon qu'elles rencon- 

 trent telle nature ou telle disposition du sujet. Mais savons-nous quelque chose de plus? 

 et m6me, vu le caractfere indetermine des causes que nous concevons dans les corps, y a-t-il 

 quelque chose de plus a savoir? Y a-t-il lieu de nous enquerir si nous percevons les choses 



telles qu'elles sont ? Non evidemment Je ne dis pas que le probleme est insoluble, ;9 



dis qu'il est absurde et enfcrme une contradiction. Nous ne savons pas ce que ces causes sont en 



elles-m^mes, et la raison nous defend de chercher a le connaitre : mais il est bien evident ^ 



