ON THE HYPOTHESIS 



perceptions, but material images or copies of the objects which they indi- 

 cate, by which means he has given a strong handle to such materialists, 

 or favourers, of materialism, as Hartley, Priestley, and Darwin ; while, by 

 his striking away from bodies all their secondary qualities, as taste, smell, 

 sound, and colour, he has given a similar handle to such immaterialists 

 as Berkeley and Hume. 



Now it is not often that a theory is accused of leaning north and 

 south at the same time ; and whenever it can be so accused, the charge 

 is perhaps the highest compliment that can be paid to it, as proving 

 its uprightness and freedom from bias. But it was absolutely necessary 

 for the success of the new hypothesis that the Essay on Human Under- 

 standing should be demonstrated to be radically erroneous, and particu- 

 larly to have some connexion in the way of causation with what may be 

 called the physical speculations of the day, whether of materialism or of 

 immaterialism : since so long as this remained firm, so long as the system " 

 maintained its ground, the immortal edifice proposed to be erected — 

 monumentum <2re perennius — could find no place for a foundation ; and 

 on this account, and so far as I can learn, on this account alone, the 

 name of Locke has been placed among the most celebrated promoters 

 of modern skepticism though it is admitted, that nothing wasiarther 

 from his intention. 



It is hence requisite, before we enter upon a survey of this new hypo- 

 thesis, to inquire how far the objections which were offered against Mr. , 

 Locke's theory are founded in fact. I have already mentioned two of 

 the more prominent, and I shall have occasion to mention two others 

 immediately. 



We are told, in the first place, that Mr. Locke has not used the term 

 idea in all instances in one and the same signification ; and that while it 

 sometimes imports something separate from body, it sometimes imports a 

 modification of body itself. 



But this is egregiously to mistake his meaning, and to charge him with 

 a confusion of conception which only belongs to the person who can 

 thus interpret him. Des Cartes, after most of the Greek philosophers, 

 had asserted, that our ideas are in some way or other exact images of the 

 objects presented to the senses : Mr. Locke, in opposition to this asser- 

 tion, contended that so far from being exact images they have not the 

 smallest resemblance to them in any respect, with the exception of those 

 ideas that represent the real or primary qualities of bodies, or such as belong 

 to bodies intrinsically : and which, in his own day, were supposed to con- 

 sist of figure, extension, sohdity, motion, or rest, and number. These 

 quahties being keal in the bodies in which they appear, the ideas which 

 REALLY represent them are, in his opinion, entitled to be called resem- 

 blances of them ; while the ideas of the secondary qualities of bodies, 

 or those which are not real, but merely ostensible, or which, in other 

 words, do not intrinsically belong to the bodies in which they appear, as 

 colour, sound, taste, and smell, are not entitled to be called resemblances 

 of them. Now what does such observation upon these two sets of qua- , 

 lities amount to ? Plainly and unequivocally to this, and nothing more : 

 that as the first set of ideas are real representatives of real qualities, and 

 the latter real representatives of ostensible qualities, there is in the former 

 case a resemblance of reality, though there is no other resemblance, and 



^ Bftattie on Truth : compare part ii. chap. ii. § 1 2. with the opening of part ii. cb. § 



