every operation of mind that has an object. Thus, injury is the object of resentment. When I resent an injury, I am conscious of my resentment-that is, my resentment is the immediate and the only object of my consciousness; but it would be absurd to infer from this, that my resentment is the immediate object of my resentment. [197] Upon the whole, if Arnauld-in consequence of his doctrine, that ideas, taken for representative images of external objects, are a mere fiction of the philosophers -had rejected boldly the doctrine of Des Cartes, as well as of the other philosophers, concerning those fictitious beings, and all the ways of speaking that imply their existence, I should have thought him more consistent with himself, and his doctrine concerning ideas more rational and more intelligible than that of any other author of my acquaintance who has treated of the subject.

CHAPTER XIV.

REFLECTIONS ON THE COMMON THEORY OF IDEAS.

AFTER So long a detail of the sentiments of philosophers, ancient and modern, concerning ideas, it may seem presumptuous to call in question their existence. But no philosophical opinion, however ancient, however generally received, ought to rest upon authority. There is no presumption in requiring evidence for it, or in regulating our belief by the evidence we can find.

To prevent mistakes, the reader must again be reminded, that if by ideas are meant only the acts or operations of our minds in perceiving, remembering, or imagining objects, I am far from calling in question the existence of those acts; we are conscious of them every day and every hour of life; and I believe no man of a sound mind ever doubted of the real existence of the operations of mind, of which he is conscious. Nor is it to be doubted that, by the faculties which God has given us, we can conceive things that are absent, as well as perceive those that are within the reach of our senses; and that such conceptions may be more or less distinct, and

Reids discontent with Arnauld's opinion-an opinion which is stated with great perspicuity by its author-may be used as an argument to shew that his own doctrine is, however ambiguous, that of intui. tive or immediate perception. (See Note C.) Arnauld's theory is identical with the finer form of representa. tive or mediate perception, and the difficulties of that doctrine were not overlooked by his great antagonist. Arnauld well objected that, when we see a horse, according to Malebranche, what we see is in reality Gods himself; but Malebranche well rejoined, that,

n we see a horse, according to Arnauld, what we reality, only a modification of ourselves.-H.

more or less lively and strong. We have reason to ascribe to the all-knowing and all-perfect Being distinct conceptions of all things existent and possible, and of all their relations; and if these conceptions are called his eternal ideas, there ought to be no dispute among philosophers about a word. [198] The ideas, of whose existence I require the proof, are not the operations of any mind, but supposed objects of those operations. They are not perception, remembrance, or conception, but things that are said to be perceived, or remembered, or imagined.

Nor do I dispute the existence of what the vulgar call the objects of perception. These, by all who acknowledge their existence, are called real things, not ideas. But philosophers maintain that, besides these, there are immediate objects of perception in the mind itself: that, for instance, we do not see the sun immediately, but an idea; or, as Mr Hume calls it, an impression in our own minds. This idea is said to be the image, the resemblance, the representative of the sun, if there be a sun. It is from the existence of the idea that we must infer the existence of the sun. But the idea, being immediately perceived, there can be no doubt, as philosophers think, of its existence.

In like manner, when I remember, or when I imagine anything, all men acknowledge that there must be something that is remembered, or that is imagined; that is, some object of those operations. The object remembered must be something that did exist in time past: the object imagined may be something that never existed. But, say the philosophers, besides these objects which all men acknowledge, there is a more immediate object which really exists in the mind at the same time we remember or imagine. This object is an idea or image of the thing remembered or imagined.

The first reflection I would make on this philosophical opinion is, that it is directly contrary to the universal sense of men who have not been instructed in philosophy. When we see the sun or moon, we have no doubt that the very objects which we immediately see are very far distant from us, and from one another. We have not the least doubt that this is the sun and moon

which God created some thousands of years ago, and which have continued to perform their revolutions in the heavens ever since. [199] But how are we astonished when the philosopher informs us that we are mistaken in all this; that the sun and moon which we see are not, as we imagine, many miles distant from us, and from each other,

See Note B.-H.

but that they are in our own mind; that they had no existence before we saw them, and will have none when we cease to perceive and to think of them; because the objects we perceive are only ideas in our own minds, which can have no existence a moment longer than we think of them!*

If a plain man, uninstructed in philosophy, has faith to receive these mysteries, how great must be his astonishment! He is brought into a new world, where everything he sees, tastes, or touches, is an idea -a fleeting kind of being which he can conjure into existence, or can annihilate in the twinkling of an eye.

After his mind is somewhat composed, it will be natural for him to ask his philosophical instructor, Pray, sir, are there then no substantial and permanent beings called the sun and moon, which continue to exist whether we think of them or not?

Here the philosophers differ. Mr Locke, and those that were before him, will answer to this question, that it is very true there are substantial and permanent beings called the sun and moon; but they never appear to us in their own person, but by their representatives, the ideas in our own minds, and we know nothing of them but what we can gather from those ideas.

Bishop Berkeley and Mr Hume would give a different answer to the question proposed. They would assure the querist that it is a vulgar error, a mere prejudice of the ignorant and unlearned, to think that there are any permanent and substantial beings called the sun and moon; that the heavenly bodies, our own bodies, and all bodies whatsoever, are nothing but ideas in our minds; and that there can be nothing like the ideas of one mind, but the ideas of another mind. [200] There is nothing in nature but minds and ideas, says the Bishop;-nay, says Mr Hume, there is nothing in nature but ideas only; for what we call a mind is nothing but a train of ideas connected by certain relations between themselves.

In this representation of the theory of ideas, there is nothing exaggerated or misrepresented, as far as I am able to judge; and surely nothing farther is necessary to shew that, to the uninstructed in philosophy, it must appear extravagant and visionary, and most contrary to the dictates of common understanding.

There is the less need of any farther proof of this, that it is very amply acknow

Whether Reid himself do not virtually hold this last opinion, see Note C. At any rate, it is very incorrect to say that the sun, moon, &c., are, or can be, perceived by us as existent, and in their real distance in the heavens; all that we can be cognisant of (supposing that we are immediately percipient of the non-ego) is the rays of light emanating from them, and in contact and relation with our organ of sight.

-H.

| ledged by Mr Hume in his Essay on the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy. "It seems evident," says he, "that men are carried, by a natural instinct or prepossession, to repose faith in their senses; and that, without any reasoning, or even almost be fore the use of reason, we always suppose an external universe, which depends not on our perception, but would exist though we and every sensible creature were absent or annihilated. Even the animal creation are governed by a like opinion, and preserve this belief of external objects in all their thoughts, designs, and actions."

"It seems also evident that, when men follow this blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose the very images presented by the senses to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion that the one are nothing but representations of the other. This very table which we see white, and feel hard, is believed to exist independent of our percep tion, and to be something external to the mind which perceives it; our presence bestows not being upon it; our absence annihilates it not it preserves its existence uniform and entire, independent of the situation of intelligent beings who perceive or contemplate it. [201]

"But this universal and primary notion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind, but an image or perception; and that the senses are only the inlets through which these images are received, without being ever able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object."

It is therefore acknowledged by this philosopher, to be a natural instinct or prepossession, an universal and primary opinion of all men, a primary instinct of nature, that the objects which we immediately perceive by our senses, are not images in our minds, but external objects, and that their existence is independent of us and our perception,

In this acknowledgment, Mr Hume indeed seems to me more generous, and even more ingenuous than Bishop Berkeley, who would persuade us that his opinion does not oppose the vulgar opinion, but only that of the philosophers; and that the external existence of a material world is a philosophical hypothesis, and not the natural dictate of our perceptive powers. The Bishop shews a timidity of engaging such an adversary, as a primary and universal opinion of all men. He is rather fond to court its patronage. But the philosopher intrepidly gives a defiance to this antagonist, and seems to glory in a conflict that was worthy of his arm. Optat aprum aut fulvum descendere monte leonem. After all, I suspect that a philo

A second reflection upon this subject is that the authors who have treated of ideas, have generally taken their existence for granted, as a thing that could not be called in question; and such arguments as they have mentioned incidentally, in order to prove it, seem too weak to support the conclusion. [202]

Mr Locke, in the introduction to his Essay, tells us, that he uses the word idea to signify whatever is the immediate object of thought; and then adds, "I presume it will be easily granted me that there are such ideas in men's minds; every one is conscious of them in himself; and men's words and actions will satisfy him that they are in others." I am indeed conscious of perceiving, remembering, imagining; but that the objects of these operations are images in my mind, I am not conscious. I am satisfied, by men's words and actions, that they often perceive the same objects which I perceive, which could not be, if those objects were ideas in their own minds. Mr Norris is the only author I have met with, who professedly puts the question, Whether material things can be perceived by us immediately? He has offered four arguments to shew that they cannot. First, "Material objects are without the mind, and therefore there can be no union between the object and the percipient." Answer, This argument is lame, until it is shewn to be necessary that in perception there should be a union between the object and the percipient. Second, "Material objects are disproportioned to the mind, and removed from it by the whole diameter of Being." This argument I cannot answer, because I do not understand it. Third, "Because,

This confession would, of itself, prove how super. ficially Reid was versed in the literature of philo sophy. Norris's second argument is only the statement of a principle generally assumed by philosophers -that the relation of knowledge infers a correspond. ence of nature between the subject knowing, and the object known. This principle has, perhaps, exerted a more extensive influence on speculation than any other; and yet it has not been proved, and is incapable of proof-nay, is contradicted by the evidence of consciousness itself. To trace the influence of this assumption would be, in fact, in a certain sort, to write the history of philosophy; for, though this in. fluence has never yet been historically developed, it would be easy to shew that the belief, explicit or implicit, that what knows and what is immediately known must be of an analogous nature, lies at the root of almost every theory of cognition, from the very earliest to the very latest speculations. In the more ancient philosophy of Greece, three philo. sophers (Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, and Alemæon) are found, who professed the opposite doctrine-that the condition of knowledge lies in the contraricty, in the natural antithesis, of subject and object. Aristotle, likewise, in his treatise On the Soul, expressly con demns the prevalent opinion, that the similar is only

of perception, there could be no physical science-things necessary and immuable being the only object of science." Answer, Although things necessary and immutable be not the immediate objects of perception, they may be immediate objects of other powers of the mind. Fourth, "If material things were perceived by themselves, they would be a true light to our minds, as being the intelligible form of our understandings, and consequently perfective of them, and indeed superior to them." If I comprehend anything of this mysterious argument, it follows from it, that the Deity perceives nothing at all, because nothing can be superior to his understanding, or perfective of it. [203]

There is an argument which is hinted at by Malebranche, and by several other authors, which deserves to be more seriously considered. As I find it most clearly expressed and most fully urged by Dr Samuel Clarke, I shall give it in his words, in his second reply to Leibnitz, § 4. "The soul, without being present to the images of the things perceived, could not possibly perceive them. A living substance can only there perceive, where it is present, either to the

cognisable by the similar; but, in his Nicomachian Ethics, he reverts to the doctrine which, in the for. mer work, he had rejected. With these exceptions, no principle, since the time of Empedocles, by whom it seems first to have been explicitly announced, has been more universally received, than this-that the relation of knowledge infers an analogy of existence. This analogy may be of two degrees. What knows, and what is known, may be either similar or the same; and, i the principle itself be admitted, the latter alternative is the more philosophical. Without entering on details, I may here notice some of the more remarkable results of this principle, in both its sively, but mainly, determined the admission of a representative perception, by disallowing the possibil ity of any consciousness, or immediate knowledge of matter, by a nature so different from it as mind; and, in its two degrees, it determined the various hypotheses, by which it was attempted to explain the possibility of a representative or mediate perception of the external world. To this principle, in its lower potence-that what knows must be similar in nature to what is immediately known-we owe the intentional species of the Aristotelians, and the ideas of Malebranche and Berkeley. From this principle, in its higher potence-that what knows must be identical in nature with what is immediately known -there flow the gnostic reasons of the Platonists, the pre-existing forms or species of Theophrastus and The mistius, of Adelandus and Avicenna, the (mental) ideas of Des Cartes and Arnauld, the representations, sensual ideas, &c. of Leibnitz and Wolf, the phæno. mena of Kant, the states of Brown, and (shall we say?) the vacillating doctrine of perception held by Reid himself. Mediately, this principle was the origin of many other famous theories:-of the hier. archical gradation of souls or faculties of the Aristotelians; of the vehicular media of the Platonists; of the hypotheses of a common intellect of Alex. ander, Themistius, Averroes, Cajetanus, and Zabar. ella; of the vision in the deity of Malebranche; and of the Cartesian and Leibnitzian doctrines of assistance and pre-established harmony. Finally, to this principle is to be ascribed the refusal of the evidence of con. sciousness to the primary fact, the duality of its per. ception; and the unitarian schemes of Absolute Iden tity, Materialism, and Idealism, are the results.-H.

degrees. The general principle, not, indeed, exclu

things themselves, (as the omnipresent God is to the whole universe,) or to the images of things, as the soul is in its proper sensorium."

Sir Isaac Newton expresses the same sentiment, but with his usual reserve, in a query only.

The ingenious Dr Porterfield, in his Essay concerning the motions of our eyes, adopts this opinion with more confidence. His words are: How body acts upon mind, or mind upon body, I know not; but this I am very certain of, that nothing can act, or be acted upon, where it is not; and there fore our mind can never perceive anything but its own proper modifications, and the various states of the sensorium, to which it is present: so that it is not the external sun and moon which are in the heavens, which our mind perceives, but only their image or representation impressed upon the sensorium. How the soul of a seeing man sees these images, or how it receives those ideas, from such agitations in the sensorium, I know not; but I am sure it can never perceive the external bodies themselves, to which it is not present."

These, indeed, are great authorities: but, in matters of philosophy, we must not be guided by authority, but by reason. Dr Clarke, in the place cited, mentions slightly, as the reason of his opinion, that "nothing can any more act, or be acted upon when it is not present, than it can be where it is not." [204] And again, in his third reply to Leibnitz, § 11-"We are sure the soul cannot perceive what it is not present to, because nothing can act, or be acted upon, where it is not." The same reason we see is urged by Dr Porterfield.

That nothing can act immediately where it is not, I think must be admitted: for I agree with Sir Isaac Newton, that power without substance is inconceivable. It is a consequence of this, that nothing can be acted upon immediately where the agent is not present: let this, therefore be granted. To make the reasoning conclusive, it is farther necessary, that, when we perceive objects, either they act upon us, or we act upon them. This does not appear self-evident, nor have I ever met with any proof of it. I shall briefly offer the reasons why I think it ought not to be admitted.

When we say that one being acts upon another, we mean that some power or force is exerted by the agent, which produces, or has a tendency to produce, a change in the thing acted upon. If this be the meaning of the phrase, as I conceive it is, there appears no reason for asserting that, in perception, either the object acts upon the mind, or the mind upon the object.

An object, in being perceived, does not act at all. I perceive the walls of the room

|

where I sit; but they are perfectly inactive, and therefore act not upon the mind. To be perceived, is what logicians call an external denomination, which implies neither action nor quality in the object perceived. Nor could men ever have gone into this notion, that perception is owing to some action of the object upon the mind, were it not that we are so prone to form our notions of the mind from some similitude we conceive between it and body. Thought in the mind is conceived to have some analogy to motion in a body: and, as a body is put in motion, by being acted upon by some other body; so we are apt to think the mind is made to perceive, by some impulse it receives from the object. But reasonings, drawn from such analogies, ought never to be trusted. [205] They are, indeed, the cause of most of our errors with regard to the mind. And we might as well conclude, that minds may be measured by feet and inches, or weighed by ounces and drachms, because bodies have those properties. +

I see as little reason, in the second place, to believe that in perception the mind acts upon the object. To perceive an object is one thing, to act upon it is another; nor is the last at all included in the first. To say that I act upon the wall by looking at it, is an abuse of language, and has no meaning. Logicians distinguish two kinds of operations of mind: the first kind produces no effect without the mind; the last does. The first they call immanent acts, the se cond transitive. All intellectual operations belong to the first class; they produce no effect upon any external object. But, without having recourse to logical distinctions, every man of common sense knows, that to

This passage, among others that follow, afford the foundation of an argument, to prove that Reid

is not original in his doctrine of Perception; but

that it was borrowed from the speculations of cert in older philosophers, of which he was aware. See Note S.-H.

+ This reasoning, which is not original to Reid, (see Note S,) is not clearly or precisely expressed. In asserting that " an object, in being perceived, does not act at all," our author cannot mean that it does not act upon the organ of sense; for this would not only be absurd in itself, but in contradiction to his own doctrine-" it being," he says, "a law of our nature that we perceive not external objects un. less certain impressions be made on the nerves and brain." The assertion-" I perceive the walls of the room where I sit, but they are perfectly inactive, and, therefore, act not on the mind," is equally in. correct in statement. The walls of the room, strictly so called, assuredly do not act on the mind or on the eye; but the walls of the room, in this sens, are, in fact, no object of (visual) perception at all. What we see in this instance, and what we loosely call the walls of the room, is only the light reflected from their surface in its relation to the organ of sight-i e., colour; but it cannot be affirmed that the rays of light do not act on and affect the retina, optic nerve, and brain. What Aristotle distinguished as the concomitants of sensation-as extension, motion, position, &c.-are, indeed. perceived without any relative passion of the sense. Bu', whatever may be Reid's meaning, it is, at best, vague and inexpli cit.-H.

think of an object, and to act upon it, are very different things.

As we have, therefore, no evidence that, in perception, the mind acts upon the object, or the object upon the mind, but strong reasons to the contrary, Dr Clarke's argument against our perceiving external objects immediately falls to the ground.

This notion, that, in perception, the object must be contiguous to the percipient, seems, with many other prejudices, to be borrowed from analogy. In all the external senses, there must, as has been before observed, be some impression made upon the organ of sense by the object, or by something coming from the object. An impression supposes contiguity. Hence we are led by analogy to conceive something similar in the operations of the mind. Many philosophers resolve almost every operation of mind into impressions and feelings, words manifestly borrowed from the sense of touch. And it is very natural to conceive contiguity necessary between that which makes the impression, and that which receives it; between that which feels, and that which is felt. [206] And though no philosopher will now pretend to justify such analogical reasoning as this, yet it has a powerful influence upon the judgment, while we contemplate the operations of our minds, only as they appear through the deceitful medium of such analogical notions and expressions."

When we lay aside those analogies, and reflect attentively upon our perception of the objects of sense, we must acknowledge that, though we are conscious of perceiving objects, we are altogether ignorant how it is brought about; and know as little how we perceive objects as how we were made. And, if we should admit an image in the mind, or contiguous to it, we know as little how perception may be produced by this image as by the most distant object. Why, therefore, should we be led, by a theory which is neither grounded on evidence, nor, if admitted, can explain any one phenomenon of perception, to reject the natural and immediate dictates of those perceptive powers, to which, in the conduct of life, we find a necessity of yielding implicit submission?

There remains only one other argument that I have been able to find urged against our perceiving external objects immediately. It is proposed by Mr Hume, who, in the essay already quoted, after acknowledging that it is an universal and primary opinion of all men, that we perceive external

It is self-evident that, if a thing is to be an ob ject immediately known, it must be known as it exists. Now, a body must exist in some definite part of space-in a certain place; it cannot, there. fore, be immediately known as existing, except it be known in its place. But this supposes the mind to be immediately present to it in space.-H.

objects immediately, subjoins what follows:

"But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception; and that the senses are only the inlets through which these images are received, without being ever able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object. The table, which we see, seems to diminish as we remove farther from it: but the real table, which exists independent of us, suffers no alteration. [207] It was, therefore, nothing but its image which was present to the mind. These are the obvious dictates of reason; and no man who reflects ever doubted that the existences which we consider, when we say this house, and that tree, are nothing but perceptions in the mind, and fleeting copies and representations of other existences, which remain uniform and independent. So far, then, we are necessitated, by reasoning, to depart from the primary instincts of nature, and to embrace a new system with regard to the evidence of our

We have here a remarkable conflict between two contradictory opinions, wherein all mankind are engaged. On the one side stand all the vulgar, who are unpractised in philosophical reseaches, and guided by the uncorrupted primary instincts of nature. On the other side stand all the philosophers, ancient and modern; every man, without exception, who reflects. In this division, to my great humiliation, I find myself classed with the vulgar.

The passage now quoted is all I have found in Mr Hume's writings upon this point: and, indeed, there is more reasoning in it than I have found in any other author; I shall, therefore, examine it minutely.

First, He tells us, that "this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception."

The phrase of being present to the mind has some obscurity; but I conceive he means being an immediate object of thought; an immediate object, for instance, of perception, of memory, or of imagination. If this be the meaning, (and it is the only pertinent one I can think of,) there is no more in this passage but an assertion of the proposition to be proved, and an assertion that philosophy teaches it. If this be so, I beg leave to dissent from philosophy till she gives me reason for what she teaches. [208] For, though common sense and my external senses demand my assent to their