itself, or his perception of it. It could not be both of these in one, for this explanation of perception was founded on the admitted assumption that these two were distinct, and were to be kept distinct. Now, it could not be the object itself, for man knows the object only by knowing that he perceives it—in other words, by knowing his own perception of it; and the object and his perception being different, he could know the former only through his knowledge of the latter. Hence, knowing it through this vicarious phenomenon—namely, his own perception of it—he could only know it mediately; and therefore it was merely his own perceptions of an external universe, and not an external universe itself, that he was immediately cognizant of.
The immediate knowledge of an external universe being disproved, its reality was straightway called in question. For the existence of that which is not known immediately, or as it is in itself, requires to be established by an inference of reason. Instead, therefore, of asking, how is the intercourse carried on between man's mind and the external world? the question came to be this: Is there any real external world at all?
Three several systems undertook to answer this question. Hypothetical Realism, which defended the reality of the universe. Idealism, which denied its reality. And Scepticism, which maintained, that if there were an external universe, it must be something very different from what it appears to us to be.
Hypothetical Realism was the orthodox creed, and became a great favourite with philosophers. It admitted that an outward world could not be immediately known; that we could be immediately and directly cognizant of nothing but our own subjective states—in other words, of nothing but our perceptions of this outward world; but, at the same time, it held that it must be postulated as a ground whereby to account for these impressions. This system was designed to reconcile common sense with philosophy; but it certainly had not the desired effect. The convictions of common sense repudiated the decrees of so hollow a philosophy. The belief which this system aimed at creating was not the belief in which common sense rejoiced. To the man who thought and felt with the mass, the universe was no hypothesis— no inference of reason—but a direct reality which he had immediately before him. His perception of the universe—that is, the universe as he was cognizant of it in perception—was, he felt convinced, the very universe as it was in itself.
Idealism did not care to conciliate common sense; but it maintained, that if we must have recourse to an hypothesis to explain the origin of our perceptions, it would be a simpler one to say, that they arose in conformity with the original laws of our constitution—or simply because it was the will of our Creator that they should arise in the way they do. Thus, a real external world called into existence by hypothetical Realism, (no other Realism was at present possible), merely to account for our perceptions, was easily dispensed with as a very unnecessary encumbrance.
Scepticism assumed various modifications; but the chief guise in which it sought to outrage the convictions of mankind was, by first admitting the reality of an external world, and then by proving that this world could not correspond with our perceptions of it. Because, in producing these perceptions, its effects were, of necessity, modified by the nature of the percipient principle on which it operated: and hence our perceptions being the joint result of external nature and our own nature, they could not possibly be true and faithful representatives of the former alone. They could not but convey a false and perverted information. Thus, man's primary convictions, which taught him that the universe was what it appeared to be, were placed in direct opposition to the conclusions of his reason, which now informed him that it must be something very different from what he took it for.
Thus, in consequence of one fatal and fundamental oversight, the earlier philosophy was involved in inextricable perplexities, in its efforts to unravel the mysteries of perception. But we are now approaching times in which this oversight was retrieved, and in which, under the scrutiny of genuine speculation, the whole character and bearings of the question became altered. Its old features were obliterated, and out of the crucible of
