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■with the object itself as it is possible for the sensations to be. 
If we are desirous to hum— to make sure of an external object 
as we express it— we examine it by means of our senses. . We 
do not examine our sensations, nor do we examine exclusively 
by means of our sensations. We examine the °»J eot b y 
means of the sensations, and also by means of all the other 
states in which the mind can be brought to bear upon it. 
You might as well say that a mechanic is working, not upon 
the machine which he is constructing, but upon some ot the 
tools with all of which he is constructing it, as say that we 
are reflecting upon our sensations, or our ideas, or both, when 
thus endeavouring to reach a real knowledge of this object. 
I am not, however, to be understood as meaning to argue 
that our direct thoughts of external objects are knowledge 
any more than are our sensations. My aim here is to show 
that we must seek for that which may be truly called know- 
ledge in something else than the mere impressions which are 
made upon us by the objects of that knowledge. It is to 
be remembered also, that impressions are as real when 
made directly on the mind itself as when produced throug 
the organs of the body. The thought which takes place m the 
man when no external material object whatever is producing 
any impression on the body, or on the senses, is an 
impression as real as any sensation that is ever experienced. 
The facts of mere consciousness, observes Cousin, can oe 
observed quite as well as those which take, place on 
the scene of the world. The only difference is that on 
the one hand they are exterior, on the other they aie 
interior, and that, the natural action of our faculties carrying 
us outward, it is easier for us to observe the former than the 
latter ”* Yet every fact of direct thought in consciousness is 
not, properly speaking, knowledge. If, for example, a gold- 
digger in one of his reveries has the thought of a laige nn gg > 
which lies hid in a certain piece of rock, raised m his mteni- 
gence, or thinking self, and as the result of that thougnt 
he goes and finds a nugget in a rock which he never saw or 
heard of before, it would be very difficult to prove that this 
thought was produced as either a direct or an indirect impression 
by the rock in question ; but the thought is a real impression 
on the intelligence. It is in harmony, too, with the. object 
thought of, yet no one will call that impression on this intelli- 
gence by the name of knowledge; nor can any one take all 
the facts of our mental history into account and leave out sm 
directly suggested tliouglits. You cannot say tlia le 
# Cousin’s History of Philosophy. Second Series. Vol. II. Lect. XVI. 
