sky,) which are never heard; but we maintain, that in thinking such sounds, we necessarily think the hearing of them; in other words, we think that we would have heard them, had we been near enough to the spot where they occurred—which is exactly the same thing as imagining ourselves, or some other percipient being, present at that spot. We establish an ideal union between them and hearing. In respect to thought, they are as nothing unless thought of as heard. Thus only do we, or can we, conceive them. Whenever, therefore, the objective is here thought of, the same ideal and indissoluble union ensues between it and the subjective, which we endeavoured to show took place between light and vision, whenever the objective of that perception was thought of.
The consideration of these two senses, sight and hearing, with their appropriate objects, light and sound, sufficiently explain and illustrate our point. For what holds good with regard to them, holds equally good with regard to all our other perceptions. The moment the objective part of any one of them is thought, we are immediately constrained by a law of our nature which we cannot transgress, to conceive as one with it the subjective part of the perception. We think objective weight only by thinking the feeling of weight. We think hardness, solidity, and resistance, in one and the same thought with touch or some subjective effort. But it would be tedious to multiply illustrations; and our doing so would keep us back too long from the important conclusion towards which we are hastening. Every illustration, however, that we could instance, would only help to establish more and more firmly the great truth—that no species or form of the objective, throughout the wide universe, can be conceived of at all, unless we blend with it in one thought its appropriate subjective—that every objective, when construed to the intellect, is found to have a subjective clinging to it, and forming one with it, even when pursued in imagination unto the uttermost boundaries of creation.
Having seen, then, that the objective (the sum of which is the whole external universe) necessarily becomes, when thought, both the objective and subjective in one; we now turn to the other side of the question, and we ask whether the subjective (the sum of which is the whole mind of man) does not also necessarily convert itself, when conceived, into the subjective and the objective in one. For the establishment of this point in the affirmative is necessary for the completion of our premises. But we have no fears about the result; for certainly a simple reference made by any one to his own consciousness, will satisfy him that—as he could not think of light without thinking of seeing, or of sound without thinking of hearing—so now he cannot conceive seeing without conceiving light, or hearing without conceiving sound. Starting with light and sound, we found that these, the objective parts of perception, became, when construed to thought, both subjective and objective in one; so now, starting with seeing and hearing, we find that each of these, the subjective parts of perception, become both subjective and objective when conceived. For, let us make the attempt as often as we will, we shall find, that it is impossible to think of seeing without thinking of light, or of hearing without thinking of sound. Vision is thought through the thought of light, and hearing through the thought of sound—and they can be thought in no other manner—and these two are conceived not as two but as one.
But is there no such thing as a faculty of seeing, and a faculty of hearing, which can be thought independently of light and sound? By thinking of these faculties, are we not enabled to think of hearing and seeing without thinking of sound and light? A great deal, certainly, has been said and written about such faculties; but they are mere metaphysical chimeras of a most deceptive character, and it is high time that they should be blotted from the pages of speculation. If, in talking of these faculties, we merely meant to say that man is able to see and hear, we should find no fault with them. But they impose upon us by deceiving us into the notion that we can think what it is not possible for us to think, namely perceptions without their objects—vision without light, and hearing without sound. Consider, for example, what is meant by the faculty of hearing. There is meant by it—is there not?—a power or capacity of hearing, which remains dormant and inert until excited by the presence
