limited to any particular sensation, and a liberation from the same; while we may say of this mental disengagement, refusal, and liberation, that it is no other than thought. On the other hand, sensation is no disengagement from a particular sensation, no mental refusal to be limited to a particular sensation; it is no liberation from a particular sensation, but is, on the contrary, an absolute acquiescence in the limitation and thraldom by which each sensation is characterised.
23. After what I have just said, you should have no difficulty in perceiving that thought must be active as well as free. These two words, indeed, signify the same thing. If the freedom of thought consist in its disengaging itself from the particularity of sensation, it must, of course, be active in effecting this disengagement. This disengagement is manifestly an act, and in putting forth this act the mind is in a condition quite different from its passive state when recipient of sensation. But I need not dwell on this point. I may just remark that you should now be able to attach some meaning to the words free and active when applied to thought—a more distinct meaning, perhaps, than you have been accustomed to apply to them when used in that connection.
24. We have now reached the conclusion at which we have been aiming, and which must be made out
