thou seest only a simple red. How dost thou obtain this surface?
I. It is certainly strange.—Yet, I believe that I have found the explanation. I do not indeed see the surface, but I feel it when I pass my hand over it. My sensation of sight remains the same during this process of feeling, and hence I extend the red colour over the whole surface which I feel while I continue to see the same red.
Spirit. This might be so, didst thou really feel such a surface. But let us see whether that be possible. Thou dost not feel absolutely; thou feelest only thy feelings, and art only conscious of these?
I. Certainly. Each sensation is a determinate something. I never merely see, or hear, or feel, in general, but my sensations are always definite;—red, green, blue colours, cold, warmth, smoothness, roughness, the sound of the violin, the voice of man, and the like,—are seen, felt, or heard. Let that be settled between us.
Spirit. Willingly.—Thus, when thou saidst that thou didst feel a surface, thou hadst only an immediate consciousness of feeling smooth, rough, or the like?
I. Certainly.
Spirit. This smooth or rough is, like the red colour, a simple sensation,—a point in thee, the subject in which it abides? And with the same right with which I formerly asked why thou didst spread a simple sensation of sight over an imaginary surface, do I now ask why thou shouldst do the same with a simple sensation of touch?
I. This smooth surface is perhaps not equally smooth in all points, but possesses in each a different degree of smoothness, only that I want the capacity of strictly
