Proceeds on a mistake of what the object in perception is.

This objection to the veracity of consciousness will not occasion us much trouble. Its refutation is, in fact, contained in the very statement of the real external object of perception. The whole argument consists in a mistake of what that object is. That a thing, viewed close to the eye, should appear larger and differently figured, than when seen at a distance, and that, at too great a distance, it should even become for us invisible altogether; this only shows that what changes the real object of sight,—the reflected rays in contact with the eye, also changes, as it ought to change, our perception of such object. This ground of diffi culty could be refuted through the whole senses; but its weight is not sufficient to entitle it to any further consideration.1

The fifth ground of rejection.

The fifth ground on which the necessity of substituting a representative for an intuitive perception has been maintained, is that of Fichte. It asserts that the nature of the ego, as an intelligence endowed with will, makes it absolutely necessary, that, of all external objects of perception, there should be representative modifications in the mind. For as the ego itself is that which wills; therefore, in so far as the will tends toward objects, these must lie within the ego. An external reality cannot lie within the ego; there must, therefore, be supposed, within the mind, a representation of this reality different from the reality itself.

This fifth argument involves sundry vices, and is not of greater value than the four preceding.

Involves sundry

vices.

1. Asserts that the objects on which the will is directed must lie within the ego.

In the first place, it proceeds on the assertion, that the objects on which the will is directed, must lie within the willing ego itself. But how is this assertion proved? That the will can only tend toward those things of which the ego has itself a knowledge, is undoubtedly true. But from this it does not follow, that the object to which the knowledge is relative, must, at the same time, be present with it in the ego; but if there be a perceptive cognition, that is, a consciousness of some object external to the ego, this perception is competent to excite, and to direct, the will, notwithstanding that its object lies without the ego. That, therefore, no immediate knowledge of external objects is possible, and that consciousness

1 Vide Schulze, Anthropologie, ii. 49. 2 See especially his Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, §§ 4, 10. Werke, i. pp. 134,

313 et seq.; and his Bestimmung des Menochen. Werke, ii. p. 217 et seq.-ED.

is exclusively limited to the ego, is not evinced, by this argument of Fichte, but simply assumed.

In the second place, this argument is faulty, in that it takes no

2. Takes no account of the difference between cognitions.

to

account of the difference between those cognitions which lie at the root of the energies of will, and the other kinds of knowledge. Thus, our will never tends to what is present, what we possess, and immediately cognize; but is always directed on the future, and is concerned either with the continuance of those states of the ego, which are already in existence, or with the production of wholly novel states. But the future cannot be intuitively, immediately, perceived, but only represented and mediately conceived. That a mediate cognition is necessary, as the condition. of an act of will, — this does not prove, that every cognition must be mediate.1

We have thus

These grounds of rejection are thus, one and all, incompetent.

found by an examination of the various grounds on which it has been attempted to establish the necessity of rejecting the testimony of consciousness to the intuitive perception of the external world, that these grounds are, one and all, incompetent. I shall proceed in my next Lecture to the second section of the discussion, - to consider the nature of the hypothesis of Representation or Cosmothetic Idealism, by which it is proposed to replace the fact of consciousness, and the doctrine of Natural Realism; and shall show you that this hypothesis, though, under various modifications, adopted in almost every system of philosophy, fulfils none of the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis.

1 Vide Schulze, Anthropologie, ii. p. 52. [Cf. § 53, third edit. - ED.]

LECTURE XXVI.

THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY.

I. — PERCEPTION. — THE REPRESENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS.

No opinion has perhaps been so universally adopted in the various schools of philosophy, and more especially Recapitulation. of modern philosophy, as the doctrine of a Representative Perception; and, in our last Lecture, I was engaged in considering the grounds on which this doctrine reposes. The order of the discussion was determined by the order of the subject. It is manifest, that, in rejecting the testimony of consciousness to our immediate knowledge of the non-ego, the philosophers were bound to evince the absolute necessity of their rejection; and, in the second place, in substituting an hypothesis in the room of the rejected fact, they were bound to substitute a legitimate hypothesis, that is, one which does not violate the laws under which an hypothesis can be rationally proposed. I stated, therefore, that I should divide the criticism of their doctrine into two sections: that, in the former, I should state the reasons which have persuaded philosophers of the impossibility of acquiescing in the evidence of consciousness, endeavoring at the same time to show that these reasons afford no warrant to the conclusion which they are supposed even to necessitate; and, in the latter, attempt to prove, that the hypothesis proposed by philosophers in lieu of the fact of consciousness, does not fulfil the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis, and is, therefore, not only unnecessary, but inadmissible. The first of these sections terminated the Lecture. I stated that there are in all five grounds, on which philosophers have deemed themselves compelled to reject the fact of our immediate consciousness of the non-ego in perception, and to place philosophy in contradiction to the common sense of mankind. The grounds I considered in detail, and gave you some of the more manifest reasons which went to prove their insufficiency. This discussion I shall not attempt to recapitulate; and now proceed

II. The nature of the hypothesis of a Representative Perception. It violates all the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis.

-

to the second section of the subject, to consider the hypothesis of a Representative Perception, by which it is proposed to replace the fact of consciousness which testifies to our immediate perception of the external world. On the hypothesis, the doctrine of Cosmothetic Idealism is established: on the fact, the doctrine of Natural Dualism.

Conditions of a legitimate hypothesis. · First, That it be necessary. The hypothesis in question unnecessary.

'In the first place, from the grounds on which the cosmothetic idealist would vindicate the necessity of his rejection of the datum of consciousness, the hypothesis itself is unnecessary. The examination of these grounds proves, that the fact of consciousness is not shown to be impossible. So far, therefore, there is no necessity made out for its rejection. But it is said the fact of consciousness is inexplicable; we cannot understand how the immediate perception of an external object is possible: whereas the hypothesis of representation enables us to comprehend and explain the phænomenon, and is, therefore, if not absolutely necessary, at least entitled to favor and preference. But even on this lower, --this precarious ground, the hypothesis is absolutely unnecessary. That, on the incomprehensibility of the fact of consciousness, it is allowable to displace the fact by an hypothesis, is of all absurdities the greatest. As a fact, -an ultimate fact of consciousness, it must be incomprehensible; and were it comprehensible, that is, did we know it in its causes, did we know it as contained in some higher notion, it would not be a primary fact of consciousness, it would not be an ultimate datum of intelligence. Every how (dióri) rests ultimately on a that (87), every demonstration is deduced from something given and indemonstrable; all that is comprehensible hangs from some revealed fact, which we must believe as actual, but cannot construe to the reflective intellect in its possibility. In consciousness, in the original spontaneity of intelligence (vous, locus principiorum), are revealed the primordial facts of our intelligent nature.

But the cosmothetic idealist has no right to ask the natural realist for an explanation of the fact of consciousness; supposing even that his own hypothesis were in itself both clear and probable, — supposing that the consciousness of self were intelligible, and the consciousness of the not-self the reverse. For, on this supposition, the intelligible consciousness of self could not be an ultimate fact, but

1 See Discussions, p. 63.

2 [This expression is not meant to imply anything hyperphysical. It is used to denote the ultimate and incomprehensible nature of

the fact; of the fact which must be believed, though it connot be understood, cannot be explained.] Discussions, p. 63, note. - ED.

must be comprehended through a higher cognition, a higher consciousness, which would again be itself either comprehensible or not. If comprehensible, this would of course require a still higher cognition, and so on till we arrive at some datum of intelligence, which, as highest, we could not understand through a higher; so that, at best, the hypothesis of representation, proposed in place of the fact of consciousness, only removes the difficulty by one or two steps. The end to be gained is thus of no value; and, for this end, as we have seen and shall see, there would be sacrificed the possibility of philosophy as a rational knowledge altogether; and, in the possibility of philosophy, of course, the possibility of the very hypothesis itself.

The hypothesis not more intelligible than the fact which it displaces.

But is the hypothesis really in itself a whit more intelligible than the fact which it displaces? The reverse is true. What does the hypothesis suppose? It supposes that the mind can represent that of which it knows nothing,- that of which it is ignorant. Is this more comprehensible than the simple fact, that the mind immediately knows what is different from itself, and what is really an affection of the bodily organism? It seems, in truth, not only incomprehensible, but contradictory. The hypothesis of a representative perception thus violates the first condition of a legitimate hypothesis, -it is unnecessary ; — nay, not only unnecessary, it cannot do what it professes, it explains nothing, it renders nothing comprehensible. The second condition of a legitimate hypothesis is, that it shall not subvert that which it is devised to explain;

Second, That the hypothesis shall not subvert that which it is devised to explain.

- that it shall not explode the system of which it forms a part. But this, the hypothesis in question does; it annihilates itself in the destruction of the whole edifice of knowledge. Belying the testimony of consciousness to our immediate perception of an outer world, it belies the veracity of consciousness altogether; and the truth of consciousness is the condition of the possibility of all knowledge.

The third condition of a legitimate hypothesis, is, that the fact or facts, in explanation of which it is devised, be ascertained really to exist, and be not themselves hypothetical. But so far is the principal fact which the hypothesis of a representative perception is proposed to explain, from being certain, that its reality is even rendered problematical by the proposed explanation itself. The facts which this

Third, That the fact or facts in explanation of which it is devised, be not hypothetical.