the sensations remembered or expected. The fact believed is, that the sensations did actually form, or will hereafter form, part of the self-same series of states, or thread of consciousness, of which the remembrance or expectation of those sensations is the part now present. If, therefore, we speak of the Mind as a series of feelings, we are obliged to complete the statement by calling it a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future and we are reduced to the alternative of believing that the Mind, or Ego, is something different from any series of feelings, or possibilities of them, or of accepting the paradox, that something which ex hypothesi is but a series of feelings, can be aware of itself as a series.

Xand

The truth is, that we are here face to face with that final inexplicability, at which, as Sir W. Hamilton observes, we inevitably arrive when we reach ultimate facts; and in general, one mode of stating it only appears more incomprehensible than another, because the whole of human language is accommodated to the one, and is so incongruous with the other, that it cannot be expressed in any terms which do not deny its truth. The real stumbling block is perhaps not in any theory of the fact, but in the fact itself. The true incomprehensibility perhaps is, that something which has ceased, or is not yet in existence, can still be, in a manner, present that a series of feelings, the infinitely greater part of which is past or future, can be gathered up, as it were, into a single present conception, accompanied by a belief of reality. I think, by far the wisest thing we can do, is to accept the inexplicable fact, without any theory of how it takes place: and when we are obliged to speak of it in terms which assume a theory, to use them with a reservation as to their meaning.

I have stated the difficulties attending the attempt to /frame a theory of Mind, or the Ego, similar to what I have called the Psychological Theory of Matter, or the Non-ego. No such difficulties attend the theory in its application to Matter; and I leave it, as set forth, to pass for whatever it is worth as an antagonist doctrine to that

of Sir W. Hamilton and the Scottish School, respecting the non-ego as a deliverance of consciousness.*

Mr. Mansel, in his "Prolegomena Logica," shows a perception of the difference here pointed out between the character of the Psychological explanation of the belief in Matter, and that of the belief in Mind; and he resolves the question by drawing a distinction between the two Noumena, not often drawn by philosophers posterior to Berkeley. He considers the Ego to be a direct presentation of consciousness, while with regard to the Non-ego he is not far from adopting the Berkeleian theory. The whole of his remarks on the subject are well worth reading. See "Prolegomena Logica," pp. 123–135.

APPENDIX TO THE TWO PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

THIS attempt to bring out into distinctness the mode in which the notions of Matter and Mind, considered as Substances, may have been generated in us by the mere order of our sensations, has naturally received from those whose metaphysical opinions were already made up, a much greater amount of opposition than of assent. I think I have observed, however, that the repugnance shown to it by writers has been in tolerably correct proportion to the evidence they give of deficiency in that indispensable aptitude of a metaphysician, facility in placing himself at the point of view of a theory different from his own: and that those who have ever (if the expression may be pardoned) thought themselves into the Berkeleian or any other Idealistic scheme of philosophy, however little favourable towards other parts of the present volume, have either let this part of it alone, or expressed more or less approbation of it. Those who are completely satisfied with the popular every-day notion of Matter, or whose metaphysics have been adopted from any of the Realistic thinkers who undertake to legitimate that common notion, are usually content with going round the countertheory on the outside, and seldom place themselves sufficiently at the centre of it to perceive what a person ought to think or do, who occupies that position. They no longer, indeed, commit so gross a blunder as that which, not very long ago, even Reid, Stewart, and Brown rushed blindly into that of charging a Berkeleian with inconsistency if he did not walk into the water or into the fire. Acquaintance with the German metaphysicians, and (it is but just to add) the teachings of Sir W. Hamilton, have had that much of beneficial result. But if such thinkers as these three could pass judgment on Berkeley's doctrine while showing by such conclusive proof that they had never understood its very alphabet-that, however much consideration they may have given to the mere arguments of Berkeley, they had not begun to realise his doctrine in their own minds -to look at the sensible universe as he saw it, and see what consequences would follow; it is not wonderful that those who have got on a few steps further than this, have still much to do, before they are able to accommodate their conceptive faculties to the conditions of what I have called the Psycho

logical Theory, and follow that theory correctly into the ramification of its applications.

In principle, I must admit that my opponents, as a body, have referred the Psychological Theory to the right test. They have aimed at showing that its attempt to account for the belief in Matter (I say Matter only, because I do not profess to have adequately accounted for the belief in Mind) implies or requires that the belief should already exist, as a condition of its own production. The objection, if true, is conclusive; but they are not very particular about the proof of its truth. They, one and all, think their case made out if I employ, in any part of the exposition, the language of common life-a language constructed on the basis of the notions into the origin of which I am inquiring. If I say, that after we have seen a piece of paper on a table, our belief that it is still there during our absence means a belief that if we went again into the room we should see it, they cry out, Here is belief in Matter already assumed; the idea of going into a room implies belief in matter. If, as a proof that modifications may take place in our possibilities of sensation while the sensations are not in actual consciousness, I say that whether we are asleep or awake the fire goes out, I am told that I am assuming a knowledge of ourselves as a substance, and of the difference between being asleep and awake. They forget that to go into a room, to be asleep or awake, are expressions which have a meaning in the Psychological Theory as well as in theirs; that every assertion that can be made about the external world, which means anything on the Realistic theory, has a parallel meaning on the Psychological. Going into a room, on the Psychological theory, is a mere series of sensations felt, and possibilities of sensation inferred,* but distinguishable from every other combination of sensations and possibilities, and which, with others like to itself, forms as vast and variegated a picture of the universe as can be had on the other theory; indeed, as I maintain, the very same picture. The Psychological theory requires that we should have a conception of this series of actual and contingent sensations, as distinct from any other; but it does not require that we should have referred these sensations to a substance ulterior to all sensation or possibility of sensation. To suppose so, is to commit the same kind of misapprehension, though in a less extreme degree, which Reid, Stewart, and Brown committed.

When, in attempting an intelligible discussion of an abstruse

This particular series includes volitions in addition to sensations; but the difference is of no consequence; and the theory would stand if we suppose ourselves carried into the room instead of walking into it.

metaphysical question, I have occasion to speak of any combination of physical facts, I must speak of it by the only names there are for it. I must employ language, every word of which expresses, not things as we perceive them, or as we may have conceived them originally, but things as we conceive them now. I was addressing readers, all of whom had the acquired notion of Matter, and nearly all of them the belief in it: and it was my business to show, to these believers in Matter, a possible mode in which the notion and belief of it might have been acquired, even if Matter, in the metaphysical meaning of the term, did not exist. In endeavouring to point out to them by what facts the notion might have been generated, it was competent to me to state those facts in the language which was not only the most intelligible, but, to the minds I was addressing, the truest. The real paralogism would have been, if I had said anything implying, not the existence of Matter, but that the belief in it or the notion of it was part of the facts by which I was maintaining that this belief and notion may have been generated. But in no single instance have any adversaries whom I am aware of, been able to show this: and if they fairly placed themselves at the point of view of the Psychological explanation, they would see that I could not, in any circumstances whatever, have been reduced to this necessity: because there is, as I have said, for every statement which can be made concerning material phenomena in terms of the Realistic theory, an equivalent meaning in terms of Sensation and Possibilities of Sensation alone, and a meaning which would justify all the same processes of thought. In fact, almost all philosophers who have narrowly examined the subject, have decided that Substance need only be postulated as a support for phenomena, or as a bond of connection to hold a group or series of otherwise unconnected phenomena together: let us only, then, think away the support, and suppose the phenomena to remain, and to be held together in the same groups and series by some other agency, or without any agency but an eternal law, and every consequence follows without Substance, for the sake of which Substance was assumed. The Hindoos thought that the earth required to be supported by an elephant; but the earth turned out quite capable of supporting itself, and "hanging self-balanced" on its own "centre." Descartes thought that a material medium filling the whole space between the earth and the sun, was required to enable them to act on one another; but it has been found sufficient to suppose an immaterial law of attraction, and the medium and its vortices dropped off as superfluities.