fact of cognition, so has it given rise to the problem which has been most agitated by philosophers. This question does not relate to the existence of the fact. The existence of the perception of matter is admitted on all hands. It refers to the nature, or origin, or constitution of the fact. Is the perception of matter simple and indivisible, or is it composite and divisible? Is it the ultimate, or is it only the penultimate, datum of cognition? Is it a relation constituted by the concurrence of a mental or subjective, and a material or objective element; or do we impose upon ourselves in regarding it as such? Is it a state or modification of the human mind? Is it an effect that can be distinguished from its cause? Is it an event consequent on the presence of real antecedent objects? These interrogations are somewhat varied in their form, but each of them embodies the whole point at issue, each of them contains the cardinal question of philosophy. The perception of matter is the admitted fact. The character of this fact, that is the point which speculation undertakes to canvass, and endeavours to decipher.
Another form in which the question may be put is this: We all believe in the existence of matter, but what kind of matter do we believe in the existence of? matter per se, or matter cum perceptione? If the former, this implies that the given fact (the perception of matter) is compound and submits to analysis; if the latter, this implies that it is simple and defies partition.
Opposite answers to this question are returned by psychology and metaphysic. In the estimation of metaphysic, the perception of matter is the absolutely elementary in cognition, the ne plus ultra of thought. Reason cannot get beyond, or behind it. It has no pedigree. It admits of no analysis. It is not a relation constituted by the coalescence of an objective and a subjective element. It is not a state or modification of the human mind. It is not an effect which can be distinguished from its cause. It is not brought about by the presence of antecedent realities. It is positively the FIRST, with no forerunner. The perception-of-matter is one mental word, of which the verbal words are mere syllables. We impose upon ourselves, and we also falsify the fact, if we take any other view of it than this. Thus speaks metaphysic, though perhaps not always with an unfaltering voice.
Psychology, or the science of the human mind, teaches a very different doctrine. According to this science, the perception of matter is a secondary and composite truth. It admits of being analysed into a subjective and an objective element, a mental modification called perception on the one hand, and matter per se on the other. It is an effect induced by real objects. It is not the first datum of intelligence. It has matter itself for its antecedent. Such, in very general terms, is the explanation of the perception of matter which psychology proposes.
Psychology and metaphysic are thus radically opposed to each other in their solutions of the highest problem of speculation. Stated concisely, the difference between them is this:—psychology regards the perception of matter as susceptible of analytic treatment, and travels, or endeavours to travel, beyond the given fact; metaphysic stops short in the given fact, and there makes a stand, declaring it to be an indissoluble unity. Psychology holds her analysis to be an analysis of things. Metaphysic holds the psychological analysis to be an analysis of sounds, and nothing more. These observations exhibit, in their loftiest generalisation, the two counter doctrines on the subject of perception. We now propose to follow them into their details, for the purpose both of eliciting the truth and of arriving at a correct judgment in regard to the reformation which Dr Reid is supposed to have effected in this department of philosophy.
The psychological or analytic doctrine is the first which we shall discuss, on account of its connection with the investigations of Dr Reid, in regard to whom we may state, beforehand, our conclusion and its grounds, which are these:—that Reid broke down in his philosophy, both polemical and positive, because he assumed the psychological and not the metaphysical doctrine of perception as the basis of his
