restricted to extension and figure, and which constitute, it is said, the objective or real essence of things, and which are entirely independent of us, into what shall they be generalized? Into what but into this? into the knowledge of something, which exists in things over and above our mere knowledge of things. It is plain enough that we cannot generalize them into pure objective existence in itself; we can only generalize them into a knowledge of pure objective existence. But such a knowledge, that is to say, a knowledge of something existing in things, over and above our mere knowledge of them, is not one whit less our knowledge—and is not one whit more their existence, than the other more subjective knowledge designated by the word mere. Our knowledge of extension and figure is just as little these real qualities themselves, as our affection of colour is objective colour itself. Just as little we say, and just as much. You—(we suppose ourselves addressing an imaginary antagonist,) you hold that our knowledge of the secondary qualities is not these qualities themselves; but we ask you—Is, then, our knowledge of the primary qualities these qualities themselves? This you will scarcely maintain; but perhaps, you will say, take away the affection of colour, and the colour no longer exists; and we retort upon you—take away the knowledge of extension, and the extension no longer exists. This you will peremptorily deny, and we deny it just as peremptorily; but why do both of us deny it? Just because both of us have subreptitiously restored the knowledge of extension in denying that extension itself would be annihilated. The knowledge of extension is extension, and extension is the knowledge of extension. Perhaps, in continuation, you will say, we have our own ideas, the secondary qualities are in truth our own ideas—but that besides these we have an idea of something existing externally to us which is not an idea—and that this something forms the aggregate of the primary qualities: Admitted. But is this idea of something which is not an idea, in any degree less an idea than the other ideas spoken of? We should like to be informed in what respect it is so. Depend upon it, the primary qualities must be held to stand on precisely the same footing as the secondary, in so far as they give us any information respecting real objective existences. In accepting the one class the mind may be passive, and in accepting the other class she may be active; but that distinction will not bring us one hair's-breadth nearer to our mark. If the one class is subjective, so is the other; if the one class is objective, so is the other; and the conciliating truth is, that both classes are at once subjective and objective. In fine, we thus break the neck of the distinction. There is a world as it exists in relation to us: true. And there is the same world as it exists in itself, and in non-relation to us: true also. But the world as it exists in relation to us, is just one relation in which the world exists in relation to us; and the world as it exists in itself, and in non-relation to us, is just another relation in which the world exists in relation to us.
Some readers may perhaps imagine, that in making this strong statement we are denying the real objective existence, the primary qualities, the noumena, as they are sometimes called, of things. But we are doing no such thing. Such a denial would lead us at once into the clueless labyrinths of subjective idealism, which is a system we altogether repudiate. All that we deny is the distinction between the primary and the secondary qualities, between the noumena and the phenomena; and we deny this distinction, because we deny the existence of the faculty (the faculty of abstraction) by means of which we are supposed to be capable of making it. This certainly is no denial, but rather an affirmation, of the primary qualities of real objective existence, and it places us upon the secure and impregnable ground of real objective idealism—a system in which knowledge and existence are identical and convertible ideas.
We shall now proceed to make a few remarks on the work which stands at the head of the present article, Mr Bailey's "Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision," in which he endeavours "to show the unsoundness of that celebrated speculation."
Mr Bailey is favourably known to the literary portion of the community as the author of some ingenious "Essays on the formation and publication of opinions;" and he is doubtless a very clever man. But in the work before us, we must say that he has undertaken a task far beyond his powers, and that he has most signally failed—not because
