the fact and notion denoted by the word "I," comes into manifestation at the bidding, and under the influence, of the objects which induce the sensations accompanying it.
One fact admitted on all hands is, that our sensations are caused by certain objects presented to our senses; another fact assumed on all hands is, that our consciousness of sensations falls under the same law, and is likewise induced by the presence of these objects. But consciousness and sensation are each other's opposites, and exist as thesis and antithesis—therefore, according to this doctrine, we find two contradictory effects attributed at the same moment to the same cause, and referred to the same origin—just as if we were to affirm that the same object is at the same moment and in the same place the cause at once of light and of the absence of light, or that the sun at one and the same instant both ripens fruit and prevents it from ripening. To illustrate this by our former example (for a variety of illustrations adds nothing to the clearness of an exposition), let us suppose a sentient being to experience the smell of a rose. So long as this being's state is simply sentient, its sensation is absorbing, effective, and complete; but as soon as consciousness, or the realization of self, blends with this feeling, it from that moment becomes weaker and less perfect. It is no longer pure and unalloyed, and consequently its integrity is violated, and its strength in some degree impaired:—yet, according to our ordinary psychologists, the same object, namely, the rose, which induces the strength of the sensation, also brings along with it that suspension or weakening of the sensation which consciousness is. We are called upon to believe that the same cause at the same moment both produces and destroys a particular effect—a creed too contradictory and unintelligible to be easily embraced when thus plainly exposed. If a particular object induce a particular sensation, surely the suspension of that sensation, or, in other words, the consciousness which impairs it, and prevents it from being all-absorbing, cannot be induced by the same cause. And, besides, if our consciousness depended on our sensations, passions, or any other of our "states of mind," would not its light kindle, and its energy wax in proportion as these were brightened and increased? We have seen, however, that the reverse of this is the case, and that consciousness never burns more faintly than during man's most vivid paroxysms of sensation and of passion.
This argument, which is, however, rather a fact presented to us by experience than an inference, entirely disproves the dependency of man's consciousness upon the external objects which give birth to his sensations. It thus radically uproots that false fact by which man is made the creature and thrall of causality in his intercourse with the outward world, and the passive recipient of its impressions. At the same time the displacement of this false fact opens up to us a glimpse of that great truth, the view and realization of which it has hitherto obstructed—the liberty of man. In order to get a nearer and clearer prospect of this grand reality, let us extirpate still more radically the spurious fact we have been dealing with, until not a fibre of it remains to shoot forth anew into sprouts of error.
Chapter III.
The earliest speculators among mankind were, as we have before remarked, mere naturalists or physici. They looked at everything and conceived everything under the law of cause and effect. After a time, when speculation began to be directed upon man, or became what is now termed "metaphysical," this law still continued to be regarded as supreme, and the spirit of the old method was carried on into the new research. But as no instance of causality could be conceived without the existence of a thing operated on, as well as of a thing operating, they were forced to postulate something in man (either physical or hyperphysical) for the objects of external nature to act upon. Thus, in order to allow the law of causality an intelligible sphere of operation, and at the same time to lift man out of the mire of a gross materialism, they devised or assumed a certain spiritualized or at-
