IXXX REPORT — 1872. 



size, and^ movement of bodies removed by either their distance or their mi- 

 nuteness from being cognosced by our Tactile Sense. 



The case is still stronger in regard to that last addition to our Scientific 

 armamentum, ■vvhich promises to be not inferior in value either to the Telescope 

 or the Microscope ; for it may be truly said of the Spectroscope, that it has 

 not merely extended the range of our Vision, but has almost given us a new 

 sense, by enabling us to recognize distinctive properties in the Chemical 

 Elements which were previously quite unknown. And who shall now say 

 that we know all that is to be known as to any form of Matter ; or that the 

 Science of the fourth quarter of this century may not furnish us with as 

 great an enlargement of our knowledge of its Properties, and of our power of 

 recognizing them, as that of its third has done ? 



But, it may be said, is not this view of the Material Universe open to the 

 imputation that it is " evolved out of the depths of our own consciousness" — a 

 projection of our own Intellect into what surrounds us — an ideal rather than 

 a real World ? If all we know of Matter be an " Intellectual Conception," how 

 are we to distinguish this from such as we form in our Dreams ? — for these, 

 as our Laureate no less happily than philosophically expresses it, are " true 

 while they last." Here our "Common Sense" comes to the rescue. We 

 " awake, and behold it was a dream." Every healthy mind is conscious of the 

 difference between its waking and its dreaming experiences ; or, if it is now 

 and then puzzled to answer the question " Did this really happen, or did I 

 dream it? " the perplexity arises from the consciousness that it might have 

 happened. And every healthy mind, finding its own experiences of its waking 

 state not only self-consistent, but consistent with the experiences of others, 

 accepts them as the basis of its beliefs, in preference to even the most vivid 

 recollections of its dreams. 



The Lunatic Pauper who regards himself as a King, the Asylum in which he 

 is confined as a Palace of regal splendour, and his Keepers as obsequious at- 

 tendants, is so " possessed " by the conception framed by his disordered in- 

 tellect, that he does project it out of himself into his surroundings ; his refusal 

 to admit the corrective teaching of Common Sense being the very essence of his 

 malady. And there are not a few persons abroad in the world, who equally 

 resist the teachings of Educated Common Sense, whenever they run counter to 

 their own preconceptions ; and who may be regarded as — in so far^affected 

 with what I once heard Mr. Carlyle pithily characterize as a " diluted In- 

 eanity." 



It has been asserted, over and over again, of late years, by a class of men 

 who claim to be the only true Interpreters of Nature, that we know nothing 

 but Matter and the Laws of Matter, and that Force is a mere fiction of the 

 Imagination. May it not be affirmed, on the other hand, that while our 

 notion of Matter is a Conception of the Intellect, Force is that of which we 

 have the most direct — perhaps even the onhj dh-ect — cognizance? As I have 

 already shown you, the knowledge of Ilesistauce and of Weight which we gain 

 through our Tactile Sense is derived from our own perception of exertion ; and 

 in Vision, as in Hearing, it is the Force with which the undulations strike 

 the sensitive surface, that affects our consciousness with Sights or Sounds. 

 True it is that in our Visual and Auditory Sensations, we do not, as in oi;r 

 Tactile, directly cognosce the Force which produces them ; but the Physicist 

 has no difficulty in making sensible to us indirectly the undulations by Avhich 

 Sound is propagated, and in proving to our Intellect that the Force conaemed 

 in the transmission of Light is really enormous*. 



* See Sir John Herscliel's Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects. 



