what is called the feeling of Resistance, or, in other words, of muscular motion impeded; and that feeling is the fundamental element in the notion of matter which results from our common experience. But simultaneously with this feeling of Resistance, we have also feelings of touch; sensations of which the organs are not the nerves diffused through our muscles, but those which form a network under the skin; the sensations which are produced by passive contact with bodies without muscular action. As these skin sensations of simple contact invariably accompany the muscular sensation of resistance-for we must touch the object before we can feel it resisting our pressure-there is early formed an inseparable association between them. Whenever we feel resistance we have first felt contact; whenever we feel contact we know that were we to exercise mus

cular action we should feel more or less resistance. In this manner is formed the first fundamental group of Permanent Possibilities of Sensation; and as we in time recognise that all our other sensations are connected in point of fact with Permanent Possibilities of Resistance that in coexistence with them we should always, by sufficient search, encounter something which would give us the feeling of contact combined with the muscular sensation of resist ance—our idea of matter, as a Resisting Cause of miscellaneous sensations, is now constituted."-P. 219.

Mr Mill's confident assertion, that the theory he is about to state is so generally admitted that "it can scarcely any longer be questioned," is curious. It would be nearer the truth to say, that it had been received by very few. The theory takes away from us the belief in the external thing altogether, even the belief of an unrepresentable cause, the occult substance of the schools. It resolves the external thing into Possibility of sensation, which again is associated with a present sensation of our own, not with an independent existence of any kind in space. This is a theory embraced by very few, we apprehend. However, what we have to ask ourselves is, By what step, what process, does Mr Mill explain the origin of this belief or this Delusion of an External Thing?

We have marked in italics the expression "sensation of locomotion," that the reader might pause on this. The muscular sensation, in its elementary simplicity, separated from all associations, all knowledge derived from other sources, is not a sensation of locomotion-it is a sensation felt directly (as we believe) in the arm or the leg, but that it is a precursor of motion cannot be known till motion is known; the connection of the sensation in the arm with motion of the arm implies other knowledge than can be extracted out of one simple sensation.

Mr Mill would agree with those who assert that all localisation of sensation is acquired; he must do so, for he undertakes, as we shall see, by a most elaborate process, to extract the notion of extension out

of time; which would have been quite unnecessary if sensations felt throughout our body gave us at once extension and some vaguely defined form. Had he admitted this much knowledge to commence with, we could understand how the muscular sensation becomes the sensation of locomotion. We have limbs contrasted in position to each other, and which can change this position-we have space, and ourselves in space. But a simple muscular sensation, stripped of all relations as he presents it to us, is nothing else than a sensation as yet unlocalised, and its association with Touch would yield nothing more than this, that one sensation was followed by another.

"Resistance is only another name for a sensation of our muscular frame combined with one of touch." But space is not a sensation, motion is not mere sensation, and both these conceptions must precede the idea of resistance.

It is well known that Condillac and his followers resolved judgment itself into sensation. These psychologists might say that space and motion are indeed derived from certain judgments, certain

felt relations between our sensations; but they would add, that these judgments are themselves only a kind of sensation. If so, they are, at least, a quite peculiar kind of sensation. Judgment, under some name or other, must be introduced to explain the facts of perception. When the important contrast is perceived between full and empty space-between space that prevents and space that admits motion-(a contrast that lies at the basis of our conception of matter)-what, we ask, is the nature of this specific state of consciousness? You may call it a feeling of contrast or a perception of contrast -you may describe it as sensational or intellectual-the name matters not; one thing is clear, that it is essentially different from what is ordinarily understood as sensation.

Let us proceed to Mr Mill's account of extension; by so doing we shall have the subject more fully before us.

"The next of the primary qualities of Body is Extension; which has long been considered as one of the principal stumblingblocks of the Psychological Theory. Reid and Stewart were willing to let the whole question of the intuitive character of our knowledge of matter depend on the inability of psychologists to assign any origin to the idea of Extension, or analyse it into any combination of sensations and reminiscences of sensation. Sir W. Hamilton follows their example in laying great stress on this point.

"The answer of the opposite school I will present in its latest and most improved form, as given by Professor Bain, of Aberdeen, in the First Part of his great work on the mind.

"Mr Bain recognises two principal kinds or modes of discriminative sensibility in the muscular sense, the one corresponding to the degree of intensity of the muscular effort the amount of energy put forth; the other corresponding to the duration-the longer or shorter continuance-of the same effort. The first makes us acquainted with degrees of resistance; which we estimate by the intensity of the muscular energy required to overcome it. To the second we owe, in Mr Bain's opinion, our idea of Extension.

"When a muscle begins to contract, or a limb to bend, we have a distinct sense of how far the contraction and bending are carried; there is something in the special sensibility that makes one mode of feeling for half contraction, another mode for three-fourths, and another for total contraction. Our feeling of moving organs, or of contracting muscles, has been already affirmed to be sion-something more intense, keen, and different from our feeling of dead tenexciting; and I am now led to assert, from my best observations and by inference from acknowledged facts, that the extent of range of a movement, the degree of shortening of a muscle, is a matter of discriminative sensibility. I believe it than the sense of resistance above deto be much less pronounced, less exact scribed, but to be not the less real and demonstrable.

"If we suppose a weight raised, by the flexing of the arm, first four inches, and then eight inches; it is obvious that the mere amount of exertion or expended power will be greater, and the sensibility increased, in proportion. In this view the sense of range would simply be the sense of a greater or less continuance of the same effort, the effort being expended in movement. We can have no difficulty in believing that there should be a discriminating sensibility in this case; it seems very natural that we should be differently affected by an action continued four or five times longer than another.

"If the sense of degrees of range be then admitted as a genuine muscular determination, its functions in outward perception are very important. The attributes of extension and scope fall under its scope. In the first place, it gives the feeling of linear extension, inasmuch as this is measured by the sweep of the limb or other organs moved by the muscles. The difference between six inches and eighteen inches is expressed to us by the different degrees of contraction of some one group of muscles; those, for example, that flex the arm, or, in walking, those that flex or extend the lower limbs. The inward impression corresponding to the outward fact of six inches in length, is an impression arising from the combined shortening of a muscle and true muscular sensibility. It is the impression of a muscular effort having a certain continuance; a greater length produces a greater continuance (or a more rapid movement), and in consequence an increased feeling of expended power.

"The discrimination of length in any

In this passage quoted and adopted by Mr Mill, there seems to us the strangest confusion both of language and of thought. Every one is prepared to admit that the longer or shorter continuance of a muscular sensation may become the measure of distance or extension. But this very expression, "measure of distance," implies that the distance is something different from the sensation that measures it. Mr Bain avails himself of familiar and intelligible expressions while he is explaining his process; but his process is intended to land us in a conclusion that takes away all meaning from these very expressions. That conclusion is that distance is nothing but a muscular sensation of greater or less endurance. It follows, therefore, that a muscular sensation, by its greater or less endurance, measures itself measures its own greater or less endurance. What advance do we make by this?

When we perused Mr Bain's very able work, we thought his explanation of our belief in the exter

nal world the least satisfactory part of it. We find, however, that Mr Mill adopts that explanation. We reflect again on a theory that has received the sanction of two such eminent men; but renewed reflection only confirms our first impression. The theory, it seems, cannot even be stated without assuming those very ideas or beliefs of

the external world which it means to explain, and to explain away.

"The theory," writes Mr Mill himself, "may be recapitulated as follows: -The sensation of muscular movement unimpeded constitutes our notion of empty space; and the sensation of muscular motion impeded constitutes that of filled space. Space is room-room for move. ment; which its German name Raum We have a sensa

arm.

distinctly confirms. tion which accompanies the free movement of our organs, say for instance our This sensation is variously modified by the direction, or by the amount of the movement. We have different states of muscular sensation correspond ing to the movements of the arm upward, downward, to right, to left, or in any radius whatever of a sphere of which the joint that the arm revolves round We have also differforms the centre.

ent states of muscular sensation according as the arm is moved more, whether this consists in its being moved with greater velocity or with the same velocity during a longer time; and the equivalence of these two is speedily learnt by experi ence. These different kinds and qualities of muscular sensations experienced in getting from one point to another (that of touch and resistance, the objects of is, obtaining in succession two sensations which are regarded as simultaneous) are all we mean by saying that the points are separated by spaces, that they are at different distances and in different directions. An intervening series of muscular reached from the other, is the only pecusensations before the one object can be liarity which (according to this theory) distinguishes simultaneity in space from the simultaneity which may exist between a taste and a colour, or a taste and a smell; and we have no reason for believing that space or extension in itself is anything different from that which we recognise it by. It appears to me that this doctrine is sound, and that the muscular sensations in question are the sources of all the notion of Extension which we should ever obtain from the

tactual and muscular senses without the assistance of the eye.”—P. 229.

What can be meant by having "different states of muscular sensation corresponding to the movements of the arm upward, downward," &c., if the movements of the arm are to our consciousness nothing but muscular sensation ?—if nothing really moves ?-if there is

only sensibility of longer and shorter duration? The muscular movements can only correspond-to the muscular movements. Besides, has Mr Mill supplied us at this stage with any upward or downward? The equivalence of the two is speedily learnt by experience." By what experience can we learn that we do not move a muscle "more" during a prolonged sensation than during a shorter sensation of greater intensity-by what experience that does not imply a knowledge or belief of things in space, or points of resistance in space, of distance between them and of motion to and fro-of all the ordinarily received ideas of matter and motion? And whence comes the idea of velocity if we are yet at the acquisition of that of distance or extension. Difficulties of this kind start up incessantly.

Resistance, we are in the habit of saying, is felt-we are then thinking only of the feeling we have when repelled by the object; but if we were told that the resisting body is a sensation or two sensations, does any one recognise in this a full account of what he finds in his own consciousness? He finds there the cognition of a solid body to which he ascribes this sensation of resist ance. Nor can it be said that this cognition is only another name for his feeling of resistance; for his idea of the solid body is made up of something more than this feeling of resistance; it has an objective element in it gathered from the contrast felt between space empty and space full. It is the solid space (afterwards known as the solid thing in space) that resists. It sounds, if possible, still more preposterous, when we are told that extension, or distance, can not only be measured by a sensation in the muscle, but is that sensation. We know not what other test to apply to show the inadequacy of a mental analysis than this, that, adopting the analysis, no subsequent synthesis can reproduce for us the state of VOL. XCIX.-NO. DCIII.

consciousness intended to be analysed, and surely the test is applied here with irresistible effect.

Brown, attracted by its subtlety, indulged in a similar speculation; attempting to resolve the idea of Extension, in fact the idea of Space, into that of Time or Succession. Sir W. Hamilton exposed, as we think, the futility of the attempt. Mr Mill thus alludes to the theory of Brown, and to Sir W. Hamilton's objections:

"A theory somewhat similar, though less clearly unfolded, was advanced by Brown, and as it stands in his statement, fell under the criticism of Sir W. Hamilton, who gives it, as he thinks, a lows:short and crushing refutation, as fol

"As far as I can find his meaning in his cloud of words, he argues thus: The notion of Time or succession being supposed, that of longitudinal extension is given in the succession of feelings which accompanies the gradual contraction of

a muscle; the notion of this succession constitutes, ipso facto, the notion of a certain length; and the notion of this length (he quietly takes for granted), is the notion of longitudinal extension sought. The paralogism here is transparent. Length is an ambiguous term; and it is length in space, extensive length, and not length in time, protensive length, whose notion it is the problem to evolve. To convert, therefore, the notion of a certain kind of length (and that certain kind being also confessedly only length in time), into the notion of ging of the question--is it not? Then I a length in space is at best an idle begwould ask, whether the series of feelings of which we are aware in the gradual contraction of a muscle involves the consciousness of being a succession in length (1) in time alone? or (2) in space alone? or (3) in time and space together? These three cases will be allowed to be exhaustive if the first be affirmed; if the succession appear in consciousness a succession in time exclusively, then nothing has been accomplished; for the notion of extension or space is in no way contained in the notion of duration or time. Again, if the second or third is affirmed; if

the series appear to consciousness a succession in length either in space alone, or in space and time together, then is the notion it behoved to generate employed to generate itself.'"

C

Which reasoning of Sir W. Hamilton's we hold to be tolerably conclusive. Mr Mill proceeds thus to rebut it:

"The dilemma looks formidable, but one of its horns is blunt; for the very assertion of Brown, and of all who hold the psychological theory, is, that the notion of length in space, not being in our consciousness originally, is constructed by the mind's laws out of the notion of length of time. Their argument is not, as Sir W. Hamilton fancied, a fallacious confusion between two different meanings of the word length, but an identification of them as one. Sir W. Hamilton did not fully understand the argument. He saw that a succession of feelings, such as that which Brown spoke of, could not possibly give

us the idea of simultaneous existence. But he was mistaken in supposing that Brown's argument implied this absurdity. The notion of simultaneity must be supposed to have been already acquired; as it necessarily would be at the very earliest period, from the familiar fact, that we often have sensations simultaneously; what Brown had to show was, that the idea of the particular mode of simultaneous existence, called extension, might arise, not certainly out of a mere succession of muscular sensations, but out of that added to the knowledge already possessed that sensa tion of touch may be simultaneous."

66

The reader must bear in mind that the simultaneous sensations of touch, according to Mr Mill, wait for this succession of muscular sensations in order to be localised, to be posited in space. "These different kinds and qualities of muscular sensation," he says, in a quotation already made, are all we mean by saying that the points are separated by spaces." Now, they could not be points unless they were separated by spaces; and their being separated by spaces means, "the different kinds and qualities of muscular sensation." The assertion therefore remains, in all its unmitigated paradox, that

succession in time gives us, or is identical with, length or extension. It is just this, which Sir W. Hamilton denies, which forms one horn of his dilemma. Nor do we see that it is "blunted" in the least. "If,” says this horn of the dilemma, "the succession of muscular sensations appear in consciousness a succession of time ex

clusively, then nothing has been accomplished, for the notion of extension or space is in no way contained in the notion of duration or time." In other words, they are not identical. Whether the horn is blunt or sharp, can be man's consciousness. decided only by an appeal to each

Our readers will perhaps suspect that we are entangling them in some extreme instance of analytic ingenuity, and that Mr Mill cannot intend so completely to obliterate the external world as he seems to do in these few extracts. Let us go back to a previous chapter, and re-peruse his broader statements on the notion of matter. He says

"Matter, then, may be defined a Permanent Possibility of Sensation. If I am asked whether I believe in matter, I ask whether the questioner accepts this definition of it. If he does, I believe in matter, and so do all Berkleians. In any other sense than this, I do not. But I affirm with confidence that this conception of matter includes the whole meaning attached to it by the common world, apart from philosophical, and sometimes from theological, theories."

Permanent possibilities of sensation are, as Mr Mill himself explains, our expectations, our thoughts of sensation. The common world attach these expectations to a Something existing in outer space. If the expectation, or thought of sensation, were all, how comes it that they are thought

it.