endeavoured to overthrow the new philosophy, by steering a middle course between two opinions; which middle course is much less tenable, much more obnoxious to squalls, and much more infested with contradictions, than the vulgar opinion of unreflective thinking which it endeavours to avoid. The vulgar, and, to a large extent, the psychological opinion is, that object and subject are separable in cognition, and constitute two separate units, or minima, of knowledge. That opinion is contradictory; but, as has been said, not so contradictory as this critic's. It has some degree of plausibility to recommend it, and it may go down with unwary thinkers. The true opinion is, that subject and object are not separable in cognition, and do not constitute two, but only one unit, or minimum, of knowledge. The reviewer's position, as has been said, is, that subject and object are not separable in cognition, and constitute, notwithstanding, two units, or minima, of knowledge. This is contradiction upon contradiction. This is taking grease with one's butter.
My antagonist seems sometimes to get confused about the very simplest matters. In every act of knowledge I have maintained that the subject (the mind) not only knows, but is and must be known (to itself); and I have dwelt on this latter circumstance, as infinitely the more important of the two for the purposes of science—showing, at the same time, that it had been too generally overlooked; or, at any rate, that its consequences had never been gathered in. My reviewer, however, professes himself unable to comprehend any distinction between subject and object, except that the one is that which knows, and the other is that which is known. He professes himself unable to understand, or to admit, that the mind should be that which both knows and is known, while matter is that which is only known. This is the distinction which I draw between the two: upon which he declares that, in making any such distinction, I am guilty of an oversight, and that "I contradict myself in a manner that would put psychology to the blush." But where is the contradiction? Why may not the mind be that which at once knows and is known, and matter be that which is only known. If my reviewer would be kind enough to
