193 



smelly and that both are hearing,, as to contend that a thought 

 is a sensation or a sensation a thought. Mr. Huxley says in 

 the same paper from which I have just quoted^ that ^'^no 

 amount of sound constitutes an echo^ but for all that no one 

 would pretend that an echo is something of totally different 

 nature from sound.-'^ I am disposed to ask what is an echo 

 but a sound ? Because the vibrations in the atmosphere go 

 off to a distance and return^ they do not cease to be only 

 vibrations. ''^No amount of sound constitutes an echo ! 

 One can scarcely believe his own eyes when he sees such words 

 from such a pen. It is amazing that one who can distinguish 

 between an echo and a sound is unable to see the difference 

 between a sensation and a thought^ and that too when the 

 sensation is a mere first impression^ and the thought is a long- 

 perfected abstraction ! 



We may look in passing at one or two other specimens of 

 Mr. Huxley^s philosophy. We do so^ because of the vast 

 influence of the man. He say s^ '''It is wholly inconceivable 

 that what we call extension should exist independently of 

 such consciousness as our own. Whether^ notwithstanding 

 such inconceivability, it does exist, or not, is a point on which 

 I offer no opinion.''^ * I not only conceive, but perfectly 

 understand and believe, that my bed is six feet and a half 

 long when I am sound asleep as it is when I am awake. The 

 same as to the breadth. The same as to everything that is 

 extended. Mr. Huxley has got his mind so twisted, that he 

 conceives of extension as only a state of mind, and he cannot 

 both conceive this and its contradictory at the same time. 

 That inconceivableness need neither puzzle him nor any reader 

 of the Lay Sermons. It is only the very simple fact that 

 one who believes an error cannot at the same moment believe 

 the truth on the point on which he is in error. With such 

 examples before us, we may safely hold that sensation is not 

 thought, though Mr. Huxley should not be even able to con- 

 ceive of the difference ! 



Mr. Herbert Spencer says, that '^^to remember the colour 

 red is to have, in a weak degree, that psychical state w^hich 

 the presentation of the colour red produces.^^ t This is, per- 

 haps, the foundation of Mr. Huxley^s mistake. Is it strictly 

 true ? For the first time a red object is presented to the 

 eye of a child, the peculiar impression which that red object 

 produces is the psychical state,^^ as Mr. Spencer regards it, in 

 its strong degree. Then, also, for the first time, a blue object 



* Lay Sermons, ed. 1871, p. 327. + Principles of Psychology, p. 559. 



