CONTACT OF MATTER AND THE IMMATERIAL. 9 



matter, it is not true that feeling, or the sense of touch, as 

 is hastily assumed by the succeeding inference we have 

 stated, does not touch ; for it could not be a sense or con- 

 sciousness of touch, without touching. The missing link in the 

 chain, therefore, is the proposition that the sense of touch 

 does touch, and is a consciousness of touching. It is, in fact, 

 the point of contact between Matter and the Immaterial or 

 Metaphysical, and but for the fact that the sense, or con- 

 sciousness of touch touches the first proposition, that nothing 

 but matter can touch, or be touched, would not be disproved 

 by the other proposition, that feeling, the sense of touch, is 

 not an attribute of matter ; for it is only because the sense 

 of touch touches that we are enabled to demonstrate tho 

 inaccuracy of the first proposition, and say that something 

 else than matter can touch or be touched that our con- 

 sciousness of touch, which is not material, can touch Matter, 

 and that Matter can, reciprocally, touch our Consciousness. 

 Hence our consciousness of touch is an actual contact with 

 that which we call Matter, and is a demonstration to us of 

 the existence of that Matter. What then becomes of the 

 wild inference that the existence of Matter cannot be 

 demonstrated ? And what of Hume's wilder and wider 

 leap into the chaos of metaphysical intangibility, that 

 Reality is incapable of demonstration ? 



The result of this correction is that the proposition 



1st. That ' nothing but matter can touch or be touched ' 

 is untrue, for 



2nd. Feeling, the sense or consciousness of touch, is not 

 material, and 



3rd. Feeling, or the sense of touch, touches and is con- 

 sciousness of touching Matter, and, consequently, 



4th. Matter and the immaterial or metaphysical may 

 be, and are, mutually capable of touching, and are in actual 

 contact when the consciousness of touch is occasioned, 

 and 



