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but divide a particle into particles; and each atom comprehends in itself the properties of the material universe. Let any reever-may divide it mechanically or chemically: we never get further than to the surfaces of bodies. That alone in matter which is indestructible is its indwelling power, which discovers itself to feeling through impenetrability. But this is a power which goes merely ab extra-only works contrary to the outward impact; thus it is no power that returns into itself. Only a power that returns into itself makes to itself an Inward. Thence to matter belongs no Inward. But the representing being beholds an inner world. This is not possible except through an activity which gives to itself its own sphere, or, in other words, returns into itself. But no activity goes back into itself, which does not, on this very accout and at the same time, also go outward. There is no sphere without limitation, but just as little is there limitation without space, which is limited."

See also Schelling's Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur. Introd. 2d edit. Landshut, 1803, p. 22. S. C.]

66

8 [For great part of the remainder of this paragraph see Schelling's Transc. Id., pp. 149-50. Compare also with Ideen, Introd., p. 22. Schelling concludes the former passage in the Transsc. Id. as follows: Transl. The most consistent proceeding of Dogmatism"-(that is, the old method of determining upon supersensible objects without a previous inquiry into the nature and scope of the faculties by which the inquiry is to be carried on,-without "a pre-inquisition into the mind")—" is tc have recourse to the mysterious for the origin of representations of external things, and to speak thereof as of a revelation, which renders all futher explanation impossible; or to make the inconceivable origination of a thing so dissimilar in kind, as the representation from the impulse of an outward object, conceivable through a power, to which, as to the Deity (the only immediate object of our knowledge, according to that system), even the impossible is possible."

Schelling seems to have had in his mind such doctrine as that which is thus stated by Professor Stewart: "It is now, I think, pretty generally acknowledged by physiologists, that the influence of the will over the body is a mystery, which has never yet been unfolded; but, singular as it may appear, Dr. Reid was the first person who had courage to lay completely aside all the common hypothetical language concerning perception, and to exhibit the difficulty in all its magnitude, by a plain statement of the fact. To what then, it may be asked, does the statement amount? Merely to this; that the mind is so formed, that certain impressions produced on our organs of sense by external objects, are followed by correspondent sensations; and that these sensations (which have no more resemblance to the qualities of matter, than the words of a language have to the things they denote), are followed by a perception of the existence and qualities of the bodies by which the impressions are made; that all the steps. of this pro 12*

flecting mind make the experiment of explaining to itself the evidence of our sensuous intuitions, from the hypothesis that in any given perception there is a something which has been communicated in it by an impact, or an impression ab extra. In the first place by the impact on the percipient, or ens representans, not the object itself, but only its action or effect will pass. into the same. Not the iron tongue, but its vibrations pass into the metal of the bell. Now in our immediate perception, it is not the mere power or act of the object, but the object itself, which is immediately present. We might indeed attempt to explain this result by a chain of deductions and conclusions; but that, first, the very faculty of deducing and concluding would equally demand an explanation; and secondly, that there exists in fact no such intermediation by logical notions, such as those of cause and effect. It is the object itself, not the product of a syllogism, which is present to our consciousness. Or would we cess are equally incomprehensible; and that, for anything we can prove to the contrary, the connexion between the impression and the sensation may be both arbitrary: that it is therefore by no means impossible, that our sensations may be merely the occasions on which the correspondent perceptions are excited; and that, at any rate, the consideration of these sensations, which are attributes of mind, can throw no light on the manner in which we acquire our knowledge of the existence and qualities of body. From this view of the subject it follows, that it is external objects themselves, and not any species or images of these objects, that the mind perceives; and that, although, by the constitution of our nature, certain sensations are rendered the constant antecedents of our perceptions, yet it is just as difficult to explain how our perceptions are obtained by their means, as it would be, upon the supposition, that the mind were all at once inspired with them, without any concomitant sensations whatever." Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, pp. 69–70.

Such statements, in the view of the Transcendentalist, involve a contradiction, namely, that the soul can penetrate, by perception, into that which is without itself; or that the human soul, by divine power, has present to it, or takes in essential properties not of mind, but of something alien from mind and directly contrary to it; which is impossible. The exploded hypothesis of species and images was an attempt to do away the contradiction; the doctrine found wanting by Schelling shows the futility of that attempt; but in assuming the real outness or separateness of the objects of perception,-that they are, as things in themselves, apart from and extrinsic to our mind, appears to set up the contradiction again, or at least to keep it up. S. C.]

explain this supervention of the object to the sensation, by a productive faculty set in motion by an impulse; still the transition into the percipient, of the object itself, from which the impulse proceeded, assumes a power that can permeate and wholly possess the soul,

And like a God by spiritual art

Be all in all, and all in every part.9

And how came the percipient here? And what is become of the wonder-promising Matter, that was to perform all these marvels by force of mere figure, weight, and motion? The most consistent proceeding of the dogmatic materialist is to fall back into the common rank of soul-and-bodyists; to affect the mysterious, and declare the whole process a revelation given, and not to be understood, which it would be profane to examine too closely. Datur, non intelligitur. But a revelation unconfirmed by miracles, and a faith not commanded by the conscience, a philosopher may venture to pass by, without suspecting himself of any irreligious tendency. Thus, as mater has been generally taught, it is utterly unintelligible, and owes all its proselytes to the propensity so common among men, to mistake distinct images for clear conceptions; and vice versa, to reject as inconceivable whatever from ;) its own nature is unimaginable. But as soon as it becomes in telligible, it ceases to be materialism. In order to explain thinking, as a material phenomenon, it is necessary to refine matter into a mere modification of intelligence, with the two-fold function of appearing and perceiving. Even so did Priestley in his controversy with Price: He stripped matter of all its material properties; substituted spiritual powers; and when we expected to find a body, behold! we had nothing but its ghost-the appari tion of a defunct substance!

I shall not dilate further on this subject; because it will (if God grant health and permission) be treated of at large and systematically in a work, which I have many years been preparing, on the Productive Logos human and divine; with, and as the introduction to, a full commentary on the Gospel of St. John.

9 [Altered from Cowley's All over Love. II. Ed.]

To make myself intelligible as far as my present subject requires, it will be sufficient briefly to observe-1. That all association demands and presupposes the existence of the thoughts and images to be associated.-2. That the hypothesis of an external world exactly correspondent to those images or modifications of our own being, which alone, according to this system, we actually behold, is as thorough idealism as Berkeley's, inasmuch as it equally, perhaps in a more perfect degree, removes all reality and immediateness of perception, and places us in a dream-world of phantoms and spectres," the inexplicable swarm and equivocal generation of motions in our own brains.-3. That this hypothesis neither involves the explanation, nor precludes the necessity, of a mechanism and co-adequate forces in the percipient, which at the more than magic touch of the impulse from without is to create anew for itself the correspondent object. The formation of a copy is not solved by the mere pre-existence of an original; the copyist of Raffael's Transfiguration must repeat more or less perfectly the process of Raffael. It would be easy to explain a thought from the image on the retina, and that from the geometry of light, if this very light did not present the very same difficulty." We might as rationally chant the

10 [See Abhandlungen, Phil. Schrift., p. 217. "The Idealist in this sense is left lonely and forsaken in the midst of the world, surrounded on all sides by spectres. For him there is nothing immediate, and Intuition itself, in which spirit and object meet, is to him but a dead thought." Transl. S. C.]

11 [The reasoning here appears to be the same as in the Ideen. Introd., pp. 22-3. Schelling says-" You curiously inquire how the light, radiated back from bodies, works on your optic nerves; also how the image inverted on the retina, appears in your soul not inverted but straight: But again, what is that in you which itself sees this image on the retina, and inquires how it can have come into the soul? Evidently something which so far is wholly independent of the outward impression, and to which, however, this impression is not unknown. How then came the impression to this region of your soul, in which you feel yourself entirely free and independent of impressions? If you interpose between the affection of your nerves, your brain and so forth, and the representation of an outward thing ever so many, intervening links, you do but cheat yourself: for the passage over from body to soul cannot, according to your peculiar representations" (mode of perceiving), "take place continuousty, bu only through a leap,-which yet you propose to

Brahmin creed of the tortoise that supported the bear, that sup ported the elephant, that supported the world, to the tune of "This is the house that Jack built." The sic Deo placitum est we all admit as the sufficient cause, and the divine goodness as the sufficient reason; but an answer to the Whence and Why is no answer to the How, which alone is the physiologist's concern. It is a sophisma pigrum, and (as Bacon hath said) the arrogance of pusillanimity, which lifts up the idol of a mortal's fancy and commands us to fall down and worship it, as a work of divine wisdom, an ancile or palladium fallen from heaven. By the very same argument the supporters of the Ptolemaic system might have rebuffed the Newtonian, and pointing to the sky with selfcomplacent grin have appealed to common sense, whether the sun did not move and the earth stand still.

avoid." Transl. Compare this chapter with the remarks on the Philosophy of the Dualists in Ideen. 57. Ed.]

12 And Coxcombs vanquish Berkeley by a grin.*

* [Dr. John Brown's Essay on Satire (which was published in vol. ii. of Warburton's edit. of Pope, and in vol. iii. of Dodsley's Collection), Part. ii., l. 224. 8. C.]