288 BEVIEWS — SIR WM, HAMILTON'S 



any state of the organism whatever, but as the consequent of some 

 change in the planet Jupiter, or in the volcanoes of the Moon. But 

 on the view taken by Sir W, Hamilton of the object of sensation, 

 such an opinion is manifestly inadmissible. If sensation be, as he 

 maintains, the immediate apprehension by intelligence of certain 

 affections in our living bodies, the dependance of our sensations upon 

 our organic states cannot be arbitrary. To speak of an act of con- 

 sciousness without an object, would be a contradiction in terms. 



Let us now turn to perception, the other form of sensitive appre- 

 hension. According to Sir W. Hamilton, perception is, like sensation, 

 an act of immediate knowledge or consciousness ; but whilst the 

 latter has for its object, as we have seen, affections of the Ego, the 

 former has for its object relations of the Non Ego. Is it asked : what 

 are these relations, and how are they presented to the mind so as to be 

 perceived ? The answer is : they are relations of extension, and they 

 are apprehended in and along with our organic affections. Here, 

 for the sake of simplicity, as well as because the distinction requires 

 to be made on other accounts, we shall consider separately the rela- 

 tions of our organism to itself, and the relations of the organism to 

 what is extraorganic. In the first place, with regard to the relations 

 of our organism to itself: suppose that affections locally out of or 

 external to one another are excited in the organism by some stimulus. 

 The mind immediately apprehends the fact of their existence ; and 

 this is what we call sensation. But in immediately apprehending 

 affections mutually out of one another, it obtains a consciousness of 

 the relation of mutual outness which they bear to one another ; in other 

 words, it becomes conscious of the organism as existing under relations 

 of extension. This is perception, apprehending our body as a finite, 

 extended — that is, as a material object.* In the next place, with 

 regard to the relations in space of the material organism to what is 

 extraorganic, in order to show how these become objects of percep- 

 tion, we must refer to a class of sensorial affections which possess a 

 character altogether peculiar ; we mean modes of resistance. In 



*Sir William Hamilton defines Body to be that which occupies space and is contained in 

 space: and (as the text explains) an objective reality answering to the definition is, accord- 

 ing to him, ascertained to exist, in the consciousness which we have of affections of the 

 corporeal organism mutually external to one another. 



Now it is worthy of remark that the consciousness here described— and which is the only 

 consciousness that is supposed to reveal the extension of matter — does not reveal matter or 

 body as continuously extended. We offer no criticisim now on Sir W. Hamilton's general 

 doctrine. Tor the sake of argument, let that general doctrine be admitted. Let it be admit- 

 ted, in particular, that, when the mind perceives, it cognizes a plurality of organic affections 

 in their relation of mutual outness to one another. Does it follow that the organism in 

 "Which two such affections A and B are simultaneously apprehended is a continuum., a sub- 

 stance stretching with unbroken extension from the locus of the one affection to that of the 



