THE SENSATIONALIST PHILOSOPHY. 399 



teresting and instructive, and seems to me worth many volumes of the 

 French school which has succeeded him. 



The Germans have added nothing to the literature of Sensationalism 

 which is too much opposed to their mystical tendencies ever to have 

 secured any portion of their favour. 



Let me now endeavour to explain the connection of the Sensationalist 

 doctrine with Locke's philosophy, which you must be aware does not 

 directly favour it. Locke rejected innate ideas, maintained that the 

 first and the simplest mental states are sensations, and that from them 

 as materials, the mind forms all its other states. The question arises, 

 and may appear not to have been satisfactorily answered by Locke 

 himself, hoio these other states, by him called ideas of reflection, are 

 formed. We all recognise certain remnant copies or revivals of sensa- 

 tions recurring singly or in clusters, as the case may be, differing suf- 

 ficiently from the actual sensations, yet irresistibly referred to them, 

 as specially connected with them, and implying their previous exist- 

 ence. The inquirer asks, do these, variously combining together 

 according to natural laws, produce all possible mental states ; or are 

 they altered by an action upon them of certain faculties inherent in 

 the mind ; or again, are they so altered and acted upon after being 

 united with other states necessarily existing, though only made per- 

 ceptible by such union and which thus constitute an equivalent of the 

 supposed innate ideas ? I know not that any other supposition than 

 these three is possible in connection with Mr. Locke's primary prin- 

 ciples. The latter must be adopted by the pure idealist if he at all 

 followed out Mr. Locke's course of thought or admitted the first prin- 

 ciples. The second was probably Locke's own view, but could not be 

 sustained, if the first and simple supposition explains all the phenomena, 

 or if the alleged faculties are shown by analysis to be mere cases of a 

 general law. The first supposition is that adopted by the Sensational- 

 ist, who maintains that assuming only the uniform operation of certain 

 very simple laws derived from a wide induction and shown to have at 

 least a probable connection with the physical cause of sensations, he 

 can show how all possible mental states, intellectual and emotional must 

 arise from sensations and their revivals above referred to. He offers 

 proof that what are described by writers of other schools as distinct 

 faculties of mind are only cases of the results of the great laws, not 

 at all requiring any supposition of distinct powers, and he undertakes 

 to exhibit the composition and gradual formation of those very ideas. 



