thought it came forth in a new form—a form which carries its solution on its very front. How has this change been brought about?
We have remarked, that all preceding systems were founded on a distinction laid down between objects themselves, and our perception of objects. And we have been thus particular in stating this principle, and in enumerating a few of its consequences, because it is by the discovery of a law directly opposed to it that the great thinkers of modern times have revolutionised the whole of philosophy, and escaped the calamitous conclusions into which former systems were precipitated. In the olden days of speculation, this distinction was rendered real and absolute by the logical understanding. The objective and the subjective of human knowledge (i.e., the reality and our perception of it) were permanently severed from one another; and while all philosophers were disputing as to the mode in which these two could again intelligibly coalesce, not one of them thought of questioning the validity of the original distinction—the truth of the alleged and admitted separation. Not one of them dreamt of asking whether it was possible for human thought really to make and maintain this discrimination. It was reserved for the genius of modern thought to disprove the distinction in question, or at least to qualify it most materially by the introduction of a directly antagonist principle. By a more rigorous observation of facts, modern inquirers have been led to discover the radical identity of the subjective and the objective of human consciousness, and the impossibility of thinking them asunder. In our present inquiry, we shall restrict ourselves to the consideration of the great change which the question regarding man's intercourse with the external world has undergone, in consequence of this discovery—but its consequences are incalculable, and we know not where they are to end.
In attempting, then, to interpret the spirit of this new philosophy, we commence by remarking, that the distinction which lay at the foundation of all the older philosophies is not to be rejected and set aside altogether. Unless we made some sort of discrimination between our perceptions and outward objects, no consciousness or knowledge would be possible. This principle is one of the laws of human thought—one of the first conditions of intelligence. But we allow it only a relative validity. It gives us but one-half of the truth. We deny that it is an absolute, final, and permanent distinction; and we shall show that, if by one law of intelligence we constantly separate the subject and the object, so by another law we as constantly blend them into one. If by one principle of our nature we are continually forced to make this separation, we are just as continually forced, by another principle of our nature, to repair it. It is this latter principle which is now to engage our research. But here we must have recourse to facts and illustrations; for it is only by the aid of these that we can hope to move in an intelligible course through so abstruse an investigation.
We shall illustrate our point by first appealing to the sense of sight. Light or colour is the proper object of this perception. That which is called, in the technical language of philosophy, the objective, is the light—that which is called, in the same phraseology, the subjective, is the seeing. We shall frequently make use of these words in the sense thus indicated. Now, admitting, in a certain sense, this discrimination between the objective and subjective in the case of vision, we shall make it our business to show that it undoes itself, by each of these terms or extremes necessarily becoming, when thought, both the subjective and the objective in one.
Let us begin with the consideration of the objective—light. It is very easy to say that light is not seeing. But, good reader, we imagine you will be considerably puzzled to think light without allowing the thought of seeing to enter into the thinking of it. Just try to do so. Think of light without thinking of seeing; think the pure object without permitting any part of your subjective nature to be blended with it in that thought. Attempt to conjure up the thought of light without conjuring up along with it in indissoluble union the thought of seeing. Attempt this in every possible way—then reflect for a moment; and as sure as you are a living and percipient being, you will find that, in all your efforts to think of light, you invariably
