properties, or attributes. But this is a mere ens logicum, (vel etiam grammaticum,) the result of the thinker's own unity of consciousness, and no less contained in the conception of a plant or of a chimæra, than in the idea of the Supreme Being. If Des Cartes could have proved, that his idea of a Supreme Being is universal and necessary, and that the conviction of a reality perfectly coincident with the idea is equally universal and inevitable; and that these were in truth but one and the same act or intuition, unique, and without analogy, though, from the inadequateness of our minds, from the mechanism of thought, and the structure of language, we are compelled to express it dividually, as consisting of two correlative terms-this would have been § 2. something. But then it must be entitled a statement, not a demonstration-the necessity of which it would supersede. And something like this may perhaps be found true, where the reasoning powers are developed and duly exerted; but would, I fear, do little towards settling the dispute between the religious Theist and the speculative Atheist or Pantheist, whether this be all, or whether it is even what we mean, and are bound to mean, by the word God. The old controversy would be started, what are the possible perfections of an Infinite Beingin other words, what the legitimate sense is of the term, infinite, as applied to Deity, and what is or is not compatible with that sense. I think, and while thinking, I am conscious of certain workings or movements, as acts or activities of my being, and feel myself as the power in which they originate. I feel myself working; and the sense or feeling of this activity constitutes the sense and feeling of EXISTENCE, i. e. of my actual being. SCHOLIUM. Movements, motions, taken metaphorically, without relation to space or place. Κινησεῖς μη κατα τοπον ; άι ωσπες κινησεῖς, of Aristotle. $ 3. In these workings, however, I distinguish a difference. In some I feel myself as the cause and proper agent, and the movements themselves as the work of my own power. In others, I feel these movements as my own activity; but not as my own acts. The first we call the active or positive state of our existence; the second, the passive or negative state. The active power, nevertheless, is felt in both equally. But in the first I feel it as the cause acting, in the second, as the condition, without which I could not be acted on. SCHOLIUM. It is a truth of highest importance, that agere et pati are not different kinds, but the same kind in different relations. And this not only in consequence of an immediate re-action, but the act of receiving is no less truly an act, than the act of influencing. Thus, the lungs act in being stimulated by the air, as truly as in the act of breathing, to which they were stimulated. The Greek verbal termination, w, happily illustrates this. Ποιω, πραττω, Taw, in philosophical grammar, are all three verbs active; but the first is the active-transitive, in which the agency passes forth out of the agent into another. Tosis; what are you doing? The second is the active-in transitive. Ti ngarres; how do you do? or how are you? The third is the active-passive, or more appropriately the active-patient, the verb recipient or receptive, T Taos; what ails you? Or, to take another idiom of our language, that most livelily expresses the co-presence of an agent, an agency distinct and alien from our own, What is the matter with you? It would carry us too far to explain the nature of verbs passive, as so called in technical grammar. Suffice, that this class originated in the same causes, as led men to make the division of substances into living and dead-a division psychologically necessary, but of doubtful philosophical validity. § 4. With the workings and movements, which I refer to myself and my own agency, there alternate-say rather, I find myself alternately conscious of forms (=Impressions, images, or better or less figurative and hypothetical, presences, presentations,) and of states or modes, which not feeling as the work or effect of my own power I refer to a power other than me, i. e. (in the language derived from my sense of sight) without me. And this is the feeling, I have, of the existence of outward things. SCHOLIUM. In this superinduction of the sense of outness on the feeling of the actual arises our notion of the real and reality. But as I cannot but reflect, that as the other is to me, so I must be to § 5. the other, the terms real and actual, soon become confounded and interchangeable, or only discriminated in the gold scales of metaphysics. Since both then, the feeling of my own existence and the feeling of the existence of things without, are but this sense of an acting and working—it is clear that to exist is the same as to act or work; (Quantum operor, tantum sum,) that whatever exists, works, (=is in action ; actually is; is in deed,) that not to work, as agent or patient, is not to exist; and lastly, that patience (= vis patiendi,) and the re-action that is its co-instantaneous consequent, is the same activity in opposite and alternating relations. § 6. That which is inferred in those acts and workings, the feeling of which is one with the feeling of our own existence, or inferred from those which we refer to an agency distinct from our own, but in both instances is inferred, is the SUBJECT, i. e. that which does not appear, but lies under (quod jacet subter) the appearance. $7. But in the first instance, that namely which is inferred in its effects, and of course therefore self-inferred, the subject is a MIND, i. e. that which knows itself, and may be inferred by others; but which cannot appear. § 8. That, in or from which the subject is inferred, is the OBJECT, id quod jacet ob oculos, that which lies before us, that which lies strait opposite. SCHOLIUM. The terms used in psychology, logic, &c. even those of most frequent occurrence in common life, are, for the most part, of Latin derivation; and not only so, but the original words, such as quantity, quality, subject, object, &c. &c. formed in the schools of philosophy for scholastic use, and in correspondence to Greek technical terms of the same meaning. Etymology, therefore, is little else than indispensable to an insight into the true force, and, as it were, freshness of the words in question, especially of those that have passed from the schools into the market-place, from the medals and tokens (Box) of the philosophers' guild or company into the current coin of the land. But the difference between a man, who understands them according to their first use, and seeks to restore the original impress and superscription, and the man who gives and takes them in small change, unweighed, and tried only by the sound, may be illustrated by imagining the different points of view in which the same cowry would appear to a scienti fic conchologist, and to a chaffering negro. This use of etymology may be exemplified in the present case. The immediate object of the mind is always and exclusively the workings or makings above stated and distinguished into two kinds, § 2, 3, and 4. Where the object consists of the first kind, in which the subject infers its own existence, and which it refers to its own agency, and identifies with itself, (feels and contemplates as one with itself, and as itself,) and yet without confounding the inherent distinction between subject and object, the subject witnesses to itself that it is a mind, i. e. a subject-object, or subject that becomes an object to itself. But where the workings or makings of the second sort are the object, from objects of this sort we always infer the existence of a subject, as in the former case. But we infer it from them, rather than in them; or to express the point yet more clearly, we infer two subjects. In the object, we infer our own existence and subjectivity; from them the existence of a subject, not our own, and to this we refer the object, as to its proper cause and agent. Again, we always infer a correspondent subject; but not always a mind. Whether we consider this other subject as another mind, is determined by the more or less analogy of the objects or makings of the second class to those of the first, and not seldom depends on the varying degrees of our attention and previous knowledge. Add to these differences the modifying influence of the senses, the sense of sight more particularly, in consequence of which this subject other than we, is presented as a subject out of us. With the sensuous vividness connected with, and which in part constitutes, this outness or outwardness, contrast the exceeding obscurity and dimness in the conception of a subject not a mind; and reflect too, that, to objects of the first kind, we cannot attribute actual or separative outwardness; while, in cases of the second kind, we are, after a shorter or longer time, compelled by the law of association to transfer this outness from the inferred subject to the present object. Lastly, reflect that, in the former instance, the object is identified with the subject, both positively by the act of the subject, and negatively by insusceptibility of outness in the object; and that in the latter the very contrary takes place; namely, instead of the object being identified with the subject, the subject is taken up and confounded in the object. In the ordinary and unreflecting states, therefore, of men's minds, it could not be otherwise, but that, in the one instance, the object must be lost, and indistinguishable in the subject; and that, in the other, the subject is lost and forgotten in the object, to which a necessary illusion had already transferred that outness, which, in its origin, and in right of reason, belongs exclusively to the subject, i. e. the agent ab extra inferred from the object. For outness is but the feeling of otherness (alterity), rendered intuitive, or alterity visually represented. Hence, and also because we find this outness and the objects, to which, though they are, in fact, workings in our own being, we transfer it, independent of our will, and apparently common to other minds, we learn to connect therewith the feeling and sense of reality; and the objective becomes synonimous first with external, then with real, and at length it was employed to express universal and permanent validity, free from the accidents and particular constitution of individual intellects; nay, when taken in its highest and absolute sense, as free from the inherent limits, partial perspective, and refracting media of the human mind in specie, (idola tribûs of Lord Bacon,) as distinguished from mind in toto genere. In direct antithesis to these several senses of the term, objective, the subjective has been used as synonimous with, first, inward; second, unreal; and third, that the cause and seat of which are to be referred to the special or individual peculiarity of the percipients, mind, organs, or relative position. Of course, the meaning of the word in any one sentence cannot be definitely ascertained but by aid of the context, and will vary with the immediate purposes, and previous views and persuasions of the writer. Thus, the egoist, or ultra-idealist, affirms all objects to be subjective; the disciple of Malbranche, or of Berkeley, that the objective subsists wholly and solely in the universal subject-God. A lady, otherwise of sound mind, was so affected by the reported death of her absent husband, that every night at the same hour she saw a figure at the foot of her bed, which she identified with him, and minutely described to the bystanders, during the continuance of the vision. The husband returned, and previous to the meeting, was advised to appear for the first time at the foot of the bed, at the precise instant that the spirit used to appear, and in the dress described, in the hope that the original might scare away the counterfeit; or, to speak more seriously, in the expectation that the impression on her senses from without would meet half-way, as it were, and repel, or take the place of, the image from the brain. He followed the advice; but the moment he took his position, the lady shrieked out, "My God! there are two! and" -The story is an old one, and you may end it, happily or tragically, Tate's King Lear or Shakespeare's, according to your taste. I have brought it as a good instance of the force of the two words. You and I would hold the one for a subjective phenomenon, the other only for objective, and perhaps illustrate the fact, as I have already done elsewhere, by the case of two appearances seen in juxta-position, the one by transmitted, and the other by reflected, light. A believer, according to the old style, whose almanack of faith has the one trifling fault of being for the year of our Lord one thousand four, instead of one thousand eight hundred and twenty, would stickle for the objectivity of both.* Andrew Baxter, again, would take a different road from either. He would agree with us in calling the apparition subjective, and the figure of the husband objective, so far as the ubi of the latter, and its position extra cerebrum, or in outward spaces, was in question. But he would differ from us in not identifying the agent or proper cause of the former-i.. e. the apparition-with the subject beholding. The shape beheld he would grant to be a making in the beholder's own brain; but the facient, he would contend, was a several and other subject, an intrusive supernumerary or squatter in the same tenement and work-shop, and working with the same tools (ögyava,) as the subject, their rightful owner and original occupant. And verily, I could say something in favour of this theory, if only I might put my own interpretation on ithaving been hugely pleased with the notion of that father of oddities, and oddest of the fathers, old TERTULLIAN, who considers these soggetti cattivi, (that take possession of other folk's kitchens, pantries, sculleries, and water-closets, causing a sad to-do at headquarters,) as creatures of the same order with the Tæniæ, Lumbrici, and Ascarides-i. e. the Round, Tape, and Thread-worms. Dæmones hæc sua corpora dilatant et contrahunt ut volunt, sicut Lumbrici et alia quædam Nay, and relate the circumstance for the very purpose of proving the reality or objective truth of ghosts. For the lady saw both! But if this were any proof at all, it would at best be a superfluous proof, and superseded by the bed-posts, &c. For if she saw the real posts at the same time with the ghost, that stood betwixt them, or rather if she continued to see the ghost, spite of the sight of these, how should she not see the real husband? What was to make the difference between the two solids, or intercept the rays from the husband's dressing-gown, while it allowed free passage to those from the bed-curtain? And yet I first heard this story from one, who, though professedly an unbeliever in this branch of ancient Pneumatics, (which stood, however, a nitch higher, I suspect, in his good opinion, than Monboddo's ancient Metaphysics,) adduced it as a something on the other side !—A puzzling fact! and challenged me to answer it. And this, too, was a man no less respectable for talents, education, and active sound sense, than for birth, fortune, and official rank. So strangely are the healthiest judgments suspended by any out-of the way combinations, connected with obscure feelings and inferences, when they happen to have occurred within the narrator's own knowledge !—— The pith of this argument in support of ghost-objects, stands thus: B=D: C=D: ergo, B=C. The D, in this instance, being the equal visibility of the figure, and of its real duplicate, a logic that would entitle the logician to dine off a neck of mutton in a looking-glass, and to set his little ones in downright earnest to hunt the rabbits on the wall by candle-light. Things, that fall under the same definition, belong to the same class; and visible, yet not tangible, is the generic character of reflections, shadows, and ghosts; and apparitions, their common, and most certainly their proper, Christian name. insecta. Be this as it may, the difference between this last class of speculators and the common run of ghostfanciers, will scarcely enable us to exhibit any essential change in the meaning of the terms. Both must be described as asserting the objective nature of the appearance, and in both the term contains the sense of real as opposed to imaginary, and of outness no less than of otherness, the difference in the former being only, that, in the vulgar belief, the object is outward in relation to the whole circle, in Baxter's to the centre only. The one places the ghost without, the other within, the line of circumference. I have only to add, that these different shades of meaning form no valid objection to the revival and readoption of these correlative terms in physiology* and mental analytics, as expressing the two poles of all consciousness, in their most general form and highest abstraction. For by the law of association, the same metaphorical changes, or shiftings and ingraftings of the primary sense, must inevitably take place in all terms of greatest comprehensiveness and simplicity. Instead of subject and object, put thought and thing. You will find these liable to the same inconveniences, with the additional one of having no adjectives or adverbs, as substitutes for objective, subjective, objectively, subjectively. It is sufficient that no heterogeneous senses are confounded under the same term, as was the case prior to Bishop Bramhall's controversy with Hobbes, who had availed himself of the (at that time, and in the common usage,) equivalent words, compel and oblige, to confound the thought of moral obligation with that of compulsion and physical necessity. For the rest, the remedy must be provided by a dictionary, constructed on the one only philosophical principle, which, regarding words as living growths, offsets, and organs of the human soul, seeks to trace each historically, through all the periods of its natural growth, and accidental modifications—a work worthy of a Royal and Imperial confederacy, and which would indeed hallow the Alliance ! A work which, executed for any one language, would yet be a benefaction to the world, and to the nation itself a source of immediate honour and of ultimate weal, beyond the power of victories to be stow, or the mines of Mexico to purchase. The realization of this scheme lies in the far distance; but in the mean time, it cannot but beseem every individual competent to its furtherance, to contribute a small portion of the materials for the future templefrom a polished column to a hewn stone, or a plank for the scaffolding; and as they come in, to erect with them sheds for the workmen, and temporary structures for present use. The preceding analysis I would have you regard as my first contribution; and the first, because I have been long convinced that the want of it is a serious impediment-I will not say, to that self-knowledge which it concerns all men to attain, but-to that self-understanding, or insight, which it is all men's interest that some men should acquire; that "the heaven-descended, rva EEAUTOV," (Juv. Sat.) should exist not only as a wisdom, but as a science. But every science will have its rules of art, and with these its technical terms; and in this best of sciences, its elder nomenclature has fallen into disuse, and no other been put in its place. To bring these back into light, as so many delving-tools dug up from the rubbish of long-deserted mines, and at the same time to exemplify their use and handling, I have drawn your attention to the three questions :What is the primary and proper sense of the words Subject and Object, in the technical language of philosophy? In what does Objectivity actually exist?-From what is all apparent or assumed Objectivity derived or transferred? It is not the age, you have told me, to bring hard words into fashion. Are "Physiology," according to present usage, treats of the laws, organs, functions, &c. of life;" Physics" not so. Now, quere: The etymological import of the two words being the same, is the difference in their application accidental and arbitrary, or a hidden irony at the assumption on which the division is grounded? Uois aveu (wns, ανευ λογο, οι λογος περι Φυσεως μη ζώσης εςι λόγος αλογος. VOL. X. 21 |