Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. by Various

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It must, however, be admitted that Mr Bailey has much to justify him in
his opinion that extension must be apprehended either as plane or as
solid. None of Berkeley's followers, we believe, have ever dreamt of
conceiving it otherwise, and finding in their master's work the negation
of solid extension specially insisted on, they leapt to the conclusion
that the bishop admitted the original perception of plane extension. But
Berkeley makes no such admission. He places the perception of plane
extension on precisely the same footing with that of solid extension.
"We see planes," says he, "in the same way that we see solids."[35] And
the wisdom of the averment is obvious; for the affirmation of plane
extension involves the negation of solid extension, but this negation
involves the conception (visually derived) of solid extension; but the
admission of that conception, so derived, would be fatal to the
Berkeleian theory. Therefore its author wisely avoids the danger by
holding, that in vision we have merely the perception of what the
Germans would call the _Auseinanderseyn_, that is, the _asunderness_, of
things--a perception which implies no judgment as to whether the things
are secerned in plane or in protensive space.

[35] Essay, Sec. 158.

With regard to the supposition that, in order to preserve Berkeley's
consistency, it was necessary for him to teach that our visual
sensations, (colours namely,) being internal feelings, could involve the
perception neither of plane nor of solid extension, that is to say, of
no extension at all, according to Mr Bailey's ideas, we shall merely
remark, that there appears to us to be no inconsistency in holding, as
Berkeley does, that these colours, though originally internal to the
sight, are nevertheless perceived as extended among themselves.

We shall now say a few words on the _relevancy_ of the question, for Mr
Bailey denies that this question, concerning the reciprocal outness of
visible objects, ought to form any element in the controversy. We shall
show, however, that one of his most important arguments depends entirely
on the view that may be taken of this question; and that while the
argument alluded to would be utterly fatal to Berkeley's theory, if the
perception of reciprocal outness were denied, it is perfectly harmless
if the perception in question be admitted.

Mr Bailey's fundamental and reiterated objection to Berkeley's theory
is, that it requires us to hold that conceptions or past impressions,
derived from one sense, (the touch,) are not merely recalled when
another sense (the sight) executes its functions, but are themselves
absolutely converted into the present intuitions of that other sense. In
his own words, (_Review_, p. 69,) the theory is said to require "a
transmutation of the conceptions derived from touch into the perceptions
of sight." "According to Berkeley, (says he, _Review_, p. 22,) an
internal feeling (i.e. a visual sensation) and an external sensation
(i.e. a tactual sensation) having been experienced at the same time: the
internal feeling, when it afterwards occurs, not only suggests the idea,
but, by doing so, suggests the idea, or, if I may use the figure,
infuses the perception of its own externality. Berkeley thus attributes
to suggestion an effect contrary to its nature, which, as in the case of
language, is simply to revive in our conception what has been previously
perceived by the sense."

Now, this objection would be altogether insurmountable if it were true,
or if it were a part of Berkeley's doctrine, that the sight has no
original intuition of space, or of the reciprocal outness of its
objects--in other words, of colours out of colours; for it being
admitted that the sight has ultimately such a perception, it would be
incumbent on the Berkeleian to show how conceptions derived from another
sense, or how perceptions belonging to another sense, could be converted
into that perception. We agree with Mr Bailey, in thinking that no
process of association could effect this conversion; that if we did not
originally see colours to be out of each other, and the points of the
same colour to be out of each other, we could never so see them; and
that his argument, when thus based on the negation of all original
visual extension, and on the supposition that the touch is the sole
organ of every species of externality, would remain invulnerable.

But, with the admission of the visual intuition of space, the objection
vanishes, and the argument is shorn of all its strength. This admission
relieves the theory from the necessity of maintaining, that conceptions
derived from touch are transmuted into the perceptions of sight. It
attributes to the sight all that ever truly belongs to it, namely, the
perception of colours out of one another; it provides the visual
intuitions with an externality of their own--and the theory never
demands that they should acquire any other; and it leaves to these
visual intuitions the office of merely suggesting to the mind tactual
impressions, with which they have been invariably associated in place.
We say, _in place_; and it will be found that there is no contradiction
in our saying so, when we shall have shown that it is the touch, and not
the sight, which establishes a protensive interval between the organ and
the sensations of vision.

Visible extension, then, or the perception of colours external to
colours, being admitted, Mr Bailey's argument, if he still adheres to
it, must be presented to us in this form. He must maintain that the
theory requires that the objects of touch should not only be suggested
by the visual objects with which they have been associated, but that
they should actually be _seen_. And then he must maintain that no power
of association can enable us to see an object which can only be
touched--a position which, certainly, no one will controvert. The simple
answer to all which, is, that we never do see tangible objects--that the
theory never requires we should, and that no power of association is
necessary to account for a phenomenon which never takes place.

We cannot help thinking, that not a little of the misconception on this
subject which prevails in the writings of Mr Bailey, and, we may add, of
many other philosophers, originates in the supposition that we identify
vision with the eye in the mere act of seeing, and in their taking it
for granted that sight of itself informs us that we possess such an
organ as the eye. Of course, if we suppose that we know instinctively,
or intuitively, from the mere act of seeing, that the eye is the organ
of vision, that it forms a part of the body we behold, and is located in
the head, it requires no conjurer to prove that we _must_ have an
instinctive, or intuitive, knowledge of visible things as larger than
that organ, and, consequently, as external to it. In this case, no
process of association is necessary to account for our knowledge of the
distance of objects. That knowledge must be directly given in the very
function and exercise of vision, as every one will admit, without going
to the expense of an octavo volume to have it proved.

But we hold that no truth in mental philosophy is more incontestable
than this, that the sight originally, and of itself, furnishes us with
no knowledge of the eye, as we _now_ know that organ to exist. It does
not inform us that we have an eye at all. And here we may hazard an
observation, which, simple as it is, appears to us to be new, and not
unimportant in aiding us to unravel the mysteries of sensation; which
observation is, that, in no case whatever, does any sense inform us of
the existence of its appropriate organ, or of the relation which
subsists between that organ and its objects, but that the interposition
of some other sense[36] is invariably required to give us this
information. This truth, which we believe holds good with regard to all
the senses, is most strikingly exemplified in the case of vision, as we
shall now endeavour to illustrate.

[36] It would not be difficult to show, that as, on the one
hand, _distance_ is not involved in the original intuitions of
sight, so, on the other hand, _proximity_ is not involved in the
original intuitions of touch; but that, while it is the touch
which establishes an interval between the organ and the objects
of sight, it is the sight which establishes _no_ interval
between the organ and the objects of touch. Sight thus pays back
every fraction of the debt it has incurred to its brother sense.
This is an interesting subject, but we can only glance at it
here.

Let us begin by supposing that man is a mere "power of seeing". Under
this supposition, we must hold that the periphery of vision is one and
the same with the periphery of visible space; and the two peripheries
being identical, of course whatever objects lie within the sphere of the
one must lie within the sphere of the other also. Perhaps, strictly
speaking, it is wrong to say that these objects are apprehended as
internal to the sight; for the conception of internality implies the
conception of externality, and neither of these conceptions can, as yet,
be realized. But it is obvious what the expression _internal_ means; and
it is unobjectionable, when understood to signify that the Seeing Power,
the Seeing Act, and the Seen Things, co-exist in a synthesis in which
there is no interval or discrimination. For, suppose that we know
instinctively that the seen things occupy a locality separate from the
sight. But that implies that we instinctively know that the sight
occupies a locality separate from them. But such a supposition is a
falling back upon the notion just reprobated, that the mere act of
seeing can indicate its own organ, or can localise the visual phenomena
in the eye--a position which, we presume, no philosopher will be hardy
enough to maintain, when called upon to do so, broadly and
unequivocally. The conclusion, therefore, is irresistible, that, in mere
vision, the sight and its objects cling together in a union or
synthesis, which no function of that sense, and no knowledge imparted to
us by it, (and, according to the supposition, we have, as yet, no other
knowledge,) can enable us to discriminate or dissolve. Where the seeing
is, there is the thing seen, and where the thing seen is, there is the
seeing of it.

But man is not a mere seeing animal. He has other senses besides: He
has, for example, the sense of touch, and one of the most important
offices which this sense performs, is to break up the identity or
cohesion which subsists between sight and its objects. And how? We
answer, by teaching us to associate _vision in general_, or the abstract
_condition_ regulating our visual impressions, with the presence of the
small tangible body we call the eye, and _vision in particular_, or the
individual sensations of vision, (i.e. colours,) with the presence of
immeasurably larger bodies revealed to us by touch, and tangibly
external to the tangible eye. Sight, as we have said, does not inform us
that its sensations are situated in the eye: it does not inform us that
we have an eye at all. Neither does touch inform us that our visual
sensations are located in the eye. It does not lead us to associate with
the eye any of the visual phenomena or operations _in the first
instance_. If it did, it would (_firstly_) either be impossible for it
_afterwards_ to induce us to associate them with the presence of
tangible bodies distant and different from the eye: or, (_secondly_),
such an association would merely give birth to the abstract knowledge or
conclusion, that these bodies were in one place, while the sensations
suggesting them were felt to be associated with something in another
place; colour would not be seen--as it is--incarnated with body: or,
(_thirdly_), we should be compelled to postulate for the eye, as many
philosophers have done, in our opinion, most unwarrantably, "a faculty
of projection"[37] by which it might dissolve the association between
itself and its sensations, throwing off the latter in the form of
colours over the surface of things, and reversing the old Epicurean
doctrine that perception is kept up by the transit to the sensorium of
the ghosts or _simulacra_ of things,

Quae, quasi membranae, summo de corpore rerum,
Direptae, volitant ultro citroque per auras.[38]

It is difficult to say whether the hypothesis of "cast-off films" is
more absurd when we make the films come from things to us as spectral
effluxes, or go from us to them in the semblance of colours.

[37] We observe that even Mueller speaks of the "faculty of
projection" as if he sanctioned and adopted the hypothesis.--See
_Physiology_, vol. ii. p. 1167.

[38] Lucretius.

But according to the present view no such incomprehensible faculty, no
such crude and untenable hypothesis, is required. _Before_ the touch has
informed us that we have an eye, _before_ it has led us to associate any
thing visual with the eye, it has _already_ taught us to associate in
place the sensations of vision (colours) with the presence of tangible
objects which are not the eye. Therefore, when the touch discovers the
eye, and induces us to associate vision in some way with it, it cannot
be the particular sensations of vision called colours which it leads us
to associate with that organ; for these have been already associated
with something very different. If it be not colours, then what is it
that the touch compels us to associate with the eye? We answer that it
is the abstract _condition_ of impressions as the general law on which
all seeing depends, but as quite distinct from the particular visual
sensations apprehended in virtue of the observance of that law.

Nor is it at all difficult to understand how this general condition
comes to be associated with the eye, and how the particular visual
sensations come to be associated with something distant from the eye:
and further, how this association of the condition with one thing, and
of the sensations with another thing, (an association established by the
touch and not by the sight,) dissolves the primary synthesis of seeing
and colours. It is to be observed that there are two stages in the
process by which this secernment is brought about--_First_, the stage in
which the visual phenomena are associated with things different from the
organ of vision, the very existence of which is as yet unknown. Let us
suppose, then, the function of sight to be in operation. We behold a
visible object--a particular colour. Let the touch now come into play.
We feel a tangible object--say a book. Now from the mere fact of the
visible and the tangible object being seen and felt together, we could
not associate them in place; for it is quite possible that the tangible
object may admit of being withdrawn, and yet the visible object remain:
and if so, no association of the two in place can be established. But
this is a point that can only be determined by experience; and what says
that wise instructor? We withdraw the tangible object. The visible
object, too, disappears: it leaves its place. We replace the tangible
object--the visible object reappears _in statu quo_. There is no
occasion to vary the experiment. If we find that the visible object
invariably leaves its place when the tangible object leaves its, and
that the one invariably comes back when the other returns, we have
brought forward quite enough to establish an inevitable association in
place between the two. The two places are henceforth regarded, not as
two, but as one and the same.

By the aid of the touch, then, we have associated the visual phenomena
with thing which are _not_ the organ of vision; and well it is for us
that we have done so betimes, and before we were aware of the eye's
existence. Had the eye been indicated to us in the mere act of seeing;
had we become apprised of its existence _before_ we had associated our
visual sensations with the tangible objects constituting the material
universe, the probability, nay the certainty, is that we would have
associated them with this eye, and that then it would have been as
impossible for us to break up the association between colours and the
organ, as it now is for us to dissolve the union between colours and
material things. In which case we should have remained blind, or as bad
as blind; brightness would have been in the eye when it ought to have
been in the sun; greenness would have been in the retina when it ought
to have been in the grass. A most wise provision of nature it certainly
is, by which our visual sensations are disposed of in the right way
before we obtain any knowledge of the eye. And most wisely has nature
seconded her own scheme by obscuring all the sources from which that
knowledge might be derived. The light eyelids--the effortless muscular
apparatus performing its ministrations so gently as to be almost
unfelt--the tactual sensations so imperceptible when the eye is left to
its own motions, so keen when it is invaded by an exploring finger, and
so anxious to avoid all contact by which the existence of the organ
might be betrayed. All these are so many means adopted by nature to keep
back from the infant seer all knowledge of his own eye--a knowledge
which, if developed prematurely, would have perverted the functions, if
not rendered nugatory the very existence of the organ.

But, _secondly_, we have to consider the stage of the process in which
vision is in some way associated with an object which is _not_ any of
the things with which the visual sensations are connected. It is clear
that the process is not completed--that our task, which is to dissolve
the primary synthesis of vision and its phenomena, is but half executed,
unless such an object be found. For though we have associated the visual
sensations (colours) with something different from themselves, still
vision clings to them without a hair's-breadth of interval and pursues
them whithersoever they go. As far, then, as we have yet gone, it cannot
be said that our vision is felt or known to be distanced from the fixed
stars even by the diameter of a grain of sand. The synthesis of sight
and colour is not yet discriminated. How, then, is the interval
interposed? We answer, by the discovery of a tangible object in a
different place from any of the tangible objects associated with colour;
and then by associating, in some way or other, the operations of vision
with this object. Such an object is discovered in the eye. Now, as has
frequently been said, we cannot associate colours or the visual
sensations with this eye; for these have been already disposed of
otherwise. What, then, do we associate with it--and how? We find, upon
experiment, that our apprehension of the various visual sensations
depends on the presence and particular location of this small tangible
body. We find that the whole array of visual phenomena disappear when it
is tactually covered, that they reappear when it is reopened, and so
forth. Thus we come in some way to associate vision with it--not as
colour, however, not as visual sensation. We regard the organ and its
dispositions merely as a general condition regulating the apprehension
of the visual sensations, and no more.

Thus, by attending to the two associations that occur,--the association
(in place) of visual sensations with tangible bodies that _are not_ the
eye; and the association (in place) of vision with a small tangible body
that _is_ the eye--the eye regarded as the condition on which the
apprehension of these sensations depends; by attending to these, we can
understand how a protensive interval comes to be recognised between the
organ and its objects. By means of the touch, we have associated the
sensations of vision with tangible bodies in one place, and the
apprehension of these sensations with a tangible body in another place.
It is, therefore, impossible for the sight to dissolve these
associations, and bring the sensations out of the one place where they
are felt, into the other place where the _condition_ of their
apprehension resides. The sight is, therefore, compelled to leave the
sensations where they are, and the apprehension of them where it is; and
to recognize the two as sundered from each other--the sensations as
separated from the organ, which they truly are. Thus it is that we would
explain the origin of the perception of distance by the eye; believing
firmly that the sight would never have discerned this distance without
the mediation of the touch.

Rightly to understand the foregoing reasoning--indeed to advance a
single step in the true philosophy of sensation--we much divest
ourselves of the prejudice instilled into us by a false physiology, that
what we call our organism, or, in plain words, our body, is necessarily
_the seat_ of our sensations. That all our sensations come to be
associated _in some way_ with this body, and that some of them even come
to be associated with it _in place_, is undeniable; but so far is it
from being true, that they are all essentially implicated or
incorporated with it, and cannot exist at a distance from it, that we
have a direct proof to the contrary in our sensations of vision; and
until the physiologist can prove (what has never yet been proven) an _a
priori_ necessity that our sensations must be where our bodies are, and
an _a priori_ absurdity in the contrary supposition, he must excuse us
for resolutely standing by the fact as we find it.

This is a view which admits of much discussion, and we would gladly
expatiate upon the subject, did time and space permit; but we must
content ourselves with winding up the present observations with the
accompanying diagram, which we think explains our view beyond the
possibility of a mistake.

A
B_a_ _a_C

Let A be the original synthesis, or indiscrimination of vision and its
sensations--of light and colours. Let _a_ be the visual sensations
locally associated by means of the touch with the tangible bodies C
_before_ vision is in any way associated with B--before, indeed, we have
any knowledge of the existence of B. Then let _a_, the general condition
on which the sensations, _after a time_, are found to depend, and in
virtue of which they are apprehended, be locally associated with B--the
eye discovered by means of the touch--and we have before us what we
cannot help regarding as a complete _rationale_ of the whole phenomena
and mysteries of vision. Now, the great difference between this view of
the subject and the views of it that have been taken by _every_ other
philosopher, consists in this, that whereas their explanations
invariably implicated the visual sensations _a_ with B from the very
first, thereby rendering it either impossible for them to be afterwards
associated with C, or possible only in virtue of some very extravagant
hypothesis--our explanation, on the contrary, proceeding on a simple
observation of the facts, and never implicating the sensations _a_ with
B at all, but associating them with C _a primordiis_, merely leaving to
be associated with B, _a_, a certain general condition that must be
complied with, in order that the sensations _a_ may be apprehended,--in
this way, we say, our explanation contrives to steer clear both of the
impossibility and the hypothesis.

We would just add by way of postscript to this article--which, perhaps,
ought itself to have been only a postscript--that with regard to Mr
Bailey's allegation of our having plagiarised one of his arguments,
merely turning the coat of it outside in, we can assure him that he is
labouring under a mistake. In our former paper, we remarked that we
could not see things to be _out_ of the sight, because we could not see
the sight itself. Mr Bailey alleges, that this argument is borrowed from
him, being a mere reversal of his reasoning, that we cannot see things
to be _in_ the sight, because we cannot see both the sight and the
things. That our argument might very naturally have been suggested by
his, we admit. But it was not so. We had either overlooked the passage
in his book, or it was clean out of our mind when we were pondering our
own speculations. It did not suggest our argument, either nearly or
remotely. Had it done so, we should certainly have noticed it, and
should probably have handled both Mr Bailey's reasoning and our own to
better purpose, in consequence. If, notwithstanding this disclaimer, he
still thinks that appearances are against us, we cannot mend his faith,
but can merely repeat, that the fact is as we have stated it.

* * * * *

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS, BY WILLIAM MULREADY, R.A.

In a review we made last January of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village,"
illustrated by the Etching Club, we concluded our notice with
recommending to those able artists the "Vicar of Wakefield;" and
expressed a hope that Mr Maclise would lend his powerful aid, having in
our recollection some very happy illustrations of his hand in pictures
exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition.

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