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support it, confidently as he may affirm the other sense to be utterly false, and 
not to include anything resembling knowledge at all. The fact is, there are 
two kinds of knowledge— knowledge of perception and knowledge of 
reflection. Mr. Mill takes perception as the essential part of knowledge ; 
Professor Kirk, on the contrary, regards knowledge as exclusively reflection. 
He is, of course, at liberty to take the word in any sense he likes ; but to 
abuse another for taking it in a different sense seems to me rather unfair. 
Then we come to the question of what our knowledge really consists of. Do 
we know anything beside the impressions received through our senses ? 
Professor Kirk says we do — we know something over and above our per- 
ceptions or sensations. I am at a loss to know through what medium this 
further knowledge comes. It is not by seeing or by hearing, by smelling, by 
tasting, or by feeling— how then ? In what other way but these is it possible 
for us to come into contact with external objects ? Is there a sixth sense ? 
If so, what is it ? If there is not a sixth sense, but only five, and all our 
knowledge of external matter must come through one or other of those five, 
then the assertion is perfectly correct that we know nothing of external 
matter but from the impressions conveyed to us through our senses. It does 
not follow from this that we are therefore to dwell on these impressions as if 
they were the proper subjects of knowledge ; not by any means. We believe, 
and are right in believing, that these impressions are truthful, i.e., that there 
is a reality existing which is the cause of the impressions. (Hear, hear.) We 
fix our minds on that reality then as the true subject of knowledge ; but 
still it remains true that we know nothing of that reality but through the 
impressions. The relation of man to external nature is, in fact, much the 
same as that of a general to an army, concerning which he receives intel- 
ligence only through his aides-de-camp. He receives reports of the different 
movements going on, the positions of the enemy, and so forth ; and knows 
and can know nothing of what is going on but through these reports. Yet 
Avhen he receives one of these reports he does not reason on it, and deal with 
it as a report, but rather fixes his whole attention on the facts reported, and 
shuts the report as such out of his head altogether ; if, that is, he believes it 
to be true. (Hear, hear.) Just in the same way we fix our attention on the 
objects perceived, not on the perceptions by which we obtain our knowledge, 
while yet we all the time know nothing of the objects but that which comes 
to us through our perceptions. The question is not, as Professor Kirk puts 
it, of a mere sequence between sensation and knowledge, or sensation and 
inference ; but it is a question of possibility of thought. What possibility 
have we of obtaining knowledge of anything without us but through our 
senses ? If there is no such possibility, then Mr. Mill is quite correct in 
saying that the impressions received by the senses constitute the whole 
amount of our knowledge, or, to speak more accurately, the materials for our 
knowledge (hear, hear) ; and as in one of his statements he speaks of know- 
ledge as consisting of our conscious sensations and the legitimate inferences 
from them, I apprehend that the difference which appears to lie on the 
surface is unintentional, and Mr. Mill’s opinion the same as that which all 
