Page:Vocation of Man (1848).djvu/71

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KNOWLEDGE.
71

sciousness itself, whereby thou perceivest such an affection of thyself?

I. Yes.

Spirit. But an organ whereby thou perceivest the object itself thou hast not?

I. Since thou hast convinced me that I neither see nor feel the object itself, nor apprehend it by any external sense, I find myself compelled to confess that I have no such organ.

Spirit. Bethink thee well of this. It may be turned against thee that thou hast made me this admission. What then is an external sense at all, and how canst thou call it external, if it have no reference to any external object, and be not the organ whereby thou hast any knowledge of such?

I. I desire truth, and trouble myself little about what may be turned against me. I distinguish absolutely because I do distinguish them, green, sweet, red, smooth, bitter, fragrant, rough, ill-scented, the sound of a violin and of a trumpet. Among these sensations I place some in a certain relation of likeness to each other, although in other respects I distinguish them from each other; thus I find green and red, sweet and bitter, rough and smooth, &c., to have a certain relation of similarity to each other, and this similarity I feel to be respectively one of sight, taste, touch, &c. Sight, taste, and so forth, are not indeed in themselves actual sensations, for I never see or feel absolutely, as thou hast previously remarked, but always see red or green, taste sweet or bitter, &c. Sight, taste, and the like, are only higher definitions of actual sensations; they are classes to which I refer these latter, not by arbitrary arrangement, but guided by the immediate