of sound; and which, while existing in that state, can be conceived without any conception being formed of its object. But, in thinking this faculty, are we not obliged to think it as something which would be excited by sound, if sound were present to arouse it; and in order to think of what is embodied in the words, "would be excited by sound," are we not constrained to think sound itself, and to think it in the very same moment, and in the very same thought, in which we think the faculty that apprehends it? In other words, in order to think the faculty, are we not forced to have recourse to the notion of the very object which we professed to have left out of our account in framing our conception of the faculty? Most assuredly, the faculty and the object exist in an ideal unity, which cannot be dissolved by any exertion of thought.
Again—perhaps you will maintain that the faculty of hearing may be thought of as something which exists anterior to the existence or application of sound; and that, being thought of as such, it must be conceived independently of all conception of its object—sound being, ex hypothesi, not yet in rerum natura. But let any one attempt to frame a conception of such an existence, and he will discover that it is possible for him to do so only by thinking back in union with that existence—the very sound, which he pretended was not yet in thought or in being. Therefore, in this and every other case in which we commence by thinking the subjective of any perception, we necessarily blend with it the objective of that perception in one indivisible thought. It is both of these together which form a conceivability. Each of them, singly, is but half a thought—or, in other words, is no thought at all; is an abstraction, which may be uttered, but which certainly cannot be conceived.
We have now completed the construction of our premises. One or two condensed sentences will show the reader the exact position in which we stand. Our intercourse with the external universe was the given whole with which we had to deal. The older philosophies divided this given whole into the external universe on the one hand, and our perceptions of it on the other; but they were never able to show how these two, the objective and the subjective, could again be understood to coalesce. Like magicians, with but half the powers of sorcery, they had spoken the dissolving spell which severed man's mind from the universe; but they were unable to articulate the binding word which again might bring them into union. It was reserved for the speculation of a later day to utter this word. And this it did by admitting in limine, the distinction; but, at the same time, by showing that each of the divided members again resolves itself into both the factors, into which the original whole was separated: and that in this way the distinction undoes itself—while the subjective and the objective, each of them becoming both of them in one thought, are thus restored to their original indissoluble unity. An illustration will make this plain. In treating of mind and matter, and their connexion, the old philosophy is like a chemistry which resolves a neutral salt into an acid and an alkali, and is then unable to show how these two separate existences may be brought together. The new philosophy is like a chemistry which admits, at the outset, the analysis of the former chemistry, but which then shows that the acid is again both an acid and an alkali in one; and that the alkali is again both an alkali and an acid in one: in other words, that instead of having, as we supposed, a separate acid and a separate alkali under our hand, we have merely two neutral salts instead of one. The new philosophy then shows, that the question respecting perception answers itself in this way—that there is no occasion for thought, to explain how that may be united into one, which no effort of thought is able to put asunder into two.
By appealing to the facts of our intelligence, then, we have found that, whenever we try to think what we heretofore imagined to be the purely objective part of any perception, we are forced, by an invincible law of our nature, to think the subjective part of the perception along with it; and to think these two not as two, but as constituting one thought. And we have also found that, whenever we try to think what we heretofore imagined to be the purely subjective part
