XXXVII.] RELATION OF MIND TO SPACE AND TIME. 139 



appears to be the same time witli tlie flash, or at a cognition 

 sensibly later moment, so that sensations of different "mJ'on'l' 

 senses give a cognition of time ; while only sensations tliose of 

 of the same sense, whether of sight or of touch, are able sense^can 

 primarily to give any cognition of space.^ There is thus S^^'^ '* of 

 qnite enough in the constitution of the sensory faculties 

 of man to account for the fact that we think in time and 

 do not think in space, and that time is inseparable from 

 the human consciousness, while space can only be thought 

 of as something external to it. There is enough, I say, 

 in the constitution of our sensory faculties to account 

 for these facts, without the aid of any such hypothesis as 

 that of the conception of space being derived from the con- 

 ception of time by means of the experience of motion. 



But these, though facts of our consciousness, are not 

 necessarily facts of all consciousness. I have said above 

 that we may conceive of a being having its consciousness 

 developed in space as well as in time, and consequently 

 thinking in space as well as in time. Such would pro- Case of a 

 bably be the result if a mental nature as complex and ^JioTied ' 

 lofty as ours were developed, as it conceivably might be, out of the 

 out of the germ of the sense of sight alone. We must g,viit only: 

 suppose such a being to have no sensations whatever except 

 those of light and colour ; so that either it had no visceral 

 or organic sensations at all, or, if it had any, that they 

 took the form of sensations of colour, as jaundice is said 

 (though, I believe, erroneously) sometimes to give a yellow 

 colour to everything that is looked at. Such a being could 

 not conceive of a sensation without its having position 

 in space ; for every colour that is seen must of necessity 

 be seen in some position in space. The consequence of 



1 It may be said that a sensation of sight and one of touch are cognised 

 as related to each other in space : for instance, I botli see and feel the 

 paper on which 1 am writing, and cognise its position by means of both 

 sensations. This is true : but, as stated in the last chapter, we have every 

 reason to believe that the power of identifying a visual object with a 

 tangible one is an acquired power. If we had never seen anything that 

 we felt, and had never felt anything that we had seen, the idea of identi- 

 fying the objects of sight and of touch would not occur to us as a possible 

 or conceivable idea. 



