308 SIR WILLIAM Hamilton's philosophy: 



sation implies the maximum of perception ; but beyond a certain limit, 

 the amount of information conveyed by an impression on any sense is in 

 4he inverse proportion of its intensity. 2. Different kinds of impres- 

 sions on a sense are also subject to the same law ; figure, for example, 

 affords to the eye less organic pleasure and pain than color, but more 

 knowledge, while color furnishes less knowledge, but more pleasure 

 and pain (II. 99-104). 



In sensation proper, therefore, the organism may be considered as 

 t)f the ego, as subjective ; in perception proper as of the nonego, as 

 objective {Reid's Works, pp. 881-858, note). Accordingly, in mere 

 sensation, I am coq^cious of my organism, not as a material object 

 possessing the general properties of all matter, but only as the subject 

 ofa particular affection. Such sensation however affords the requisite 

 condition of perception. For I cannot be conscious of any particular 

 affection of my organism, except as distinguishable from others ; and 

 I thus become conscious of sensible affections of my organism as 

 distinct, that is, as out of one another. But the perception of such 

 reciprocal outness of two or more sensations is the perception of 

 extension. Accordingly any two sensations, felt as distinct, may thus 

 ^occasion the perception of my own organism as extended (Reiofs 

 Works, pp. 861, note, and 882) ; but of bodies beyond my organism 

 a perception is possible only in the consciousness of resistance to ray 

 locomotive energy (Ibid, p. 882). 



B. Corresponding to this subjective distinction, an objective distinc- 

 tion may be drawn between the qualities of matter; for some of these 

 are objects of perception, others are merely the unperceived causes of 

 sensation, while a third class are, in one phase, objects of perception, 

 in another, the unperceived causes of sensation. 



I. The first are the primary qualities, that is, those which are 

 involved in, and may be evolved from, the essential conception of 

 matter as a substance occupying space. This conception is two-fold, 

 for in accordance with it, matter may be conceived either (I) ?iS filling 

 space, or (2) as being contained in space. 



1. The attribute of filling space, or solidity simple, implies two 

 properties : 



(a.) Trinal extension, in length, breadth and thickness, or solidity 

 geometrical ; and this again implies a. Divisibility or Number, /8. 

 Magnitude, y. Figure : 



(6.) The incapability of being compressed into an unextended sub- 



