The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Introduction
• Textual Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Essays On Philosophy and the Classics
• Whately’s Elements of Logic 1828
• Notes On Some of the More Popular Dialogues of Plato 1834–35
• Editor’s Note
• The Protagoras
• The Phædrus
• The Gorgias
• The Apology of Socrates
• The Charmides
• The Euthyphron
• The Laches
• The Lysis
• The Parmenides
• Two Publications On Plato 1840
• Bailey On Berkeley’s Theory of Vision 1842, 1843
• Grote’s History of Greece [i] 1846
• Grote’s History of Greece [ii] 1853
• Bain’s Psychology 1859
• Grote’s Plato 1866
• Taine’s De L’intelligence 1870
• Berkeley’s Life and Writings 1871
• Grote’s Aristotle 1873
• Appendix: Bibliographic Index of Persons and Works Cited In the Essays, With Variants and Notes

BAILEY ON BERKELEY’S THEORY OF VISION

1842, 1843

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dissertations and Discussions, II (1867), 84-119, which reprints two articles from the Westminster Review, XXXVIII (Oct., 1842), 318-36, and XXXIX (May, 1843), 491-4, both signed “A.” The first, which has “Bailey / On Berkeley’s Theory of Vision” as running-titles, is headed: “Art. II.—A Review of Berkeley’s Theory of Vision, designed to show the Unsoundness of that Celebrated Speculation. By Samuel Bailey, Author of ‘Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions.’ &c. [London:] Ridgway, 1842.” The second, which has “Mr. Bailey’s Reply to / The Westminster Review” as running-titles, is headed: “Art. IX.—A Letter to a Philosopher, in Reply to some recent Attempts to vindicate ‘Berkeley’s Theory of Vision,’ and in further Elucidation of its Unsoundness. By the Author of ‘A Review of Berkeley’s Theory of Vision,’ ‘Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions,’ &c. [London:] Ridgway, 1843.” In reprinting them in D&D, JSM gives, in footnotes to the titles, reference to the original publication of the reviews, and repeats (minus publisher and dates) the information of the original headings; he also gives the second the title here used, “Rejoinder to Mr. Bailey’s Reply.” Identified in JSM’s bibliography as “A review of Bailey’s ‘Review of Berkeley’s Theory of Vision’ in the Westminster Review for October 1842 (No. 75),” and “A review of Bailey’s ‘Letter to a Philosopher respecting Berkeley’s Theory of Vision’; in the Westminster Review for May 1843 (No. 77).” (MacMinn, 55, 56.) There are no alterations or corrections in the copy of the first article in the Somerville College Library; in the copy of the second, an inked correction of “an” to “our” is made (see 267^n-n).

In the footnoted variants (all of which derive from the two articles in the Westminster), “67” indicates D&D, II (2nd ed., 1867), “59” indicates D&D, II (1st ed., 1859), “43” indicates the second Westminster article, and “42” the first. For comment on the composition of the essays and related matters, see the Introduction and the Textual Introduction, xlv-lvii and lxxxiii-lxxxv above.

Bailey on Berkeley’s Theory of Vision

the doctrine concerning the original and derivative functions of the sense of sight, which, from the name of its author, is known as “Berkeley’s Theory of Vision,”^[*] has remained, almost from its first promulgation, one of the least disputed doctrines in the most disputed and most disputable of all sciences, the Science of Man. This is the more remarkable, as no doctrine in mental philosophy is more at variance with first appearances, more contradictory to the natural prejudices of mankind. Yet this apparent paradox was no sooner published, than it took its place, almost without contestation, among established opinions; the warfare which has since distracted the world of metaphysics, has swept past this insulated position without disturbing it; and while so many of the other conclusions of the analytical school of mental philosophy, the school of Hobbes and Locke, have been repudiated with violence by the antagonist school, that of Common Sense or innate principles, this one doctrine has been recognised and upheld by the leading thinkers of both schools alike. Adam Smith, Reid, Stewart, and Whewell (not to go beyond our own island) have made the doctrine as much their own, and have taken as much pains to enforce and illustrate it, as Hartley, Brown, or James Mill.

This general consent of the most contrary schools of thinkers in support of a doctrine which conflicts alike with the natural tendencies of the mind, and with the peculiar ones of the larger half of the speculative world, certainly does not prove the doctrine true. But it proves that the reasons capable of being urged in behalf of the doctrine, are such as a mind accustomed to any sort of psychological inquiry must find it very difficult to resist. If the doctrine be false, there must be something radically wrong in the received modes of studying mental phenomena. It is difficult to imagine that so many minds of the highest powers, so little accustomed to agree with one another, should have been led (the majority in opposition to the whole leaning and direction of their scientific habits) into this rare and difficult unanimity, by reasonings which are a mere tissue of paralogisms and ignorationes elenchi.

Such, however, is the thesis which Mr. Bailey, in the volume before us, has undertaken to defend; and Mr. Bailey is one who, on any subject on which he thinks fit to write, is entitled to a respectful hearing. He is entitled on this occasion to something more—to the thanks which are due to whoever, in the style and spirit of sober and scientific inquiry, calls in question a received opinion. The good which follows from such public questioning is not indeed without alloy. It fosters scepticism as to the worth of science, and by creating difference where there previously was agreement, enfeebles the authority of cultivated intellects over the ignorant. But, on the other hand, such a break in the line of scientific prescription applies a wholesome stimulus to the activity of thinkers; it counteracts the tendency of speculation to grow torpid on the points on which general agreement has apparently been attained; and by not permitting philosophers to take opinions upon trust from their predecessors or from their former selves, constrains them to recal their attention to the substantial grounds on which those opinions were first adopted, and must still be received.

If the result of this re-examination be unfavourable to the received opinion, science is happily weeded of a prevailing error; if favourable, it is of no less importance that this too should be shown, and the dissentient, if not convinced, at least prevented from making converts. It is for the interest of philosophy, therefore, that a bold assault, by a champion whom no one can despise, upon one of the few doctrines of analytical psychology which were supposed to be out of the reach of doubt, should not be let pass without a minute examination and deliberate judgment.

It is necessary to begin by a clear statement of the doctrine which Mr. Bailey denies; especially as we think that an indistinct mode of conceiving and expressing the doctrine is the source of most of his apparent victories over it.

The theory of vision, commonly designated as Berkeley’s, but in fact the received doctrine of modern metaphysicians, may be stated, then, as follows.

Of the information which we appear to receive, and which we really do, in the maturity of our faculties, receive through the eye, a part only is originally and intuitively furnished by that sense; the remainder is the result of experience, and of an acquired power. The sense of sight informs us of nothing originally, except light and colours, and a certain arrangement of coloured lines and points. This arrangement constitutes what are called by opticians and astronomers apparent figure, apparent position, and apparent magnitude. Of real figure, position, and magnitude, the eye teaches us nothing; these are facts revealed exclusively by the sense of touch; but since differences in the reality are commonly accompanied by differences also in the appearance, the mind infers the real from the apparent in consequence of experience, and with a degree of accuracy proportioned to the correctness and completeness of the data which experience affords.

Further, those coloured appearances which are called visual or apparent position, figure, and magnitude, have existence only in two dimensions; or, to speak more properly, in as many directions as are capable of being traced on a plane surface. A line drawn from an object to the eye, or, in other words, the distance of an object from us, is not a visible thing. When we judge by the eye of the remoteness of any object, we judge by signs; the signs being no other than those which painters use when they wish to represent the difference between a near and a remote object. We judge an object to be more distant from us by the diminution of its apparent magnitude, that is, by linear perspective; or by that dimness or faintness of colour^aand outline^a which generally increases with the distance,^b in other words by aërial perspective.

Thus, then, the powers of the eyesight are of two classes, its original and its acquired powers; but the things which it discovers by its acquired powers seem to be perceived as directly as what it sees by its original capacities as a sense. Though the distance of an object from us is really a matter of judgment and inference, we cannot help fancying that we see it directly with our eyes; and though our sight can of itself inform us only of apparent magnitudes and figures, while it is our mind which from these infers the real, we believe that we see the real magnitudes and figures, or what we suppose to be so, not the apparent ones. A mistake occasioned by that law of the human mind (a consequence and corollary of the law of association) whereby a process of reasoning, which from habit is very rapidly performed, resembles, so closely as to be mistaken for, an act of intuition.

But although opposed to first impressions and common apprehension, the doctrine in question is confirmed by a great mass of common experience. Visible objects, seen through a clear atmosphere, as travellers in southern countries never fail to remark, seem much nearer to us; because they are seen with less diminution of their customary brightness, than has generally been the case at that distance in our previous experience. A known object, seen through a mist, seems not only farther off, but also larger than usual—a most convincing instance; for in this case the visual magnitude of the object, depending on the size of its picture on the retina, remains exactly the same; but from the same apparent size we infer a larger real size, because we have first been led by the dimness of the object to imagine it farther off, and at this greater distance there is need of a larger object to produce the same visual magnitude. So powerful, however, is the law of mind, by virtue of which a rapid inference seems to be an intuition, that when we look through a mist we cannot hinder ourselves from fancying that we actually see things larger; although their visual magnitude, which alone even Mr. Bailey contends that we see, remains, and must remain, precisely the same.

Again, where we have no experience, our eyesight gives us no information either of distance or of real magnitude. We cannot judge by the eye, of the distance of the heavenly bodies from us, nor does any one of them appear nearer or farther off than another; because we have no means of comparing their brightness or their apparent magnitude as it is, with what it would be at some known distance. As little do we fancy we can judge by the eye of the magnitudes of those bodies; or if a child fancies the moon to be no larger than a cheese, it is because he forgets that it is farther off, and draws from the visual appearance an inference, which would be well grounded if the moon and the cheese were really at an equal distance from him.

Our purpose, however, in this place, was not to illustrate or prove the theory, but to state it. In a few words, then, it is this: That the information obtained through the eye consists of two things—sensations, and inferences from those sensations: that the sensations are merely colours variously arranged, and changes of colour; that all else is inference, the work of the intellect, not of the eye; or if, in compliance with common usage, we ascribe it to the eye, we must say that the eye does it not by an original, but by an acquired power—a power which the eye exercises, through, and by means of, the reasoning or inferring faculty.

This is the “Berkeleian Theory of Vision,” accurately stated; and this statement of it comprises the essence of that to which the subsequent schools of psychology have unanimously assented.

But with the doctrine in this simple form we cannot find that Mr. Bailey has in any one instance really grappled. He has gone back to the primitive phraseology in which the theory was propounded by Berkeley and his immediate successors; men to whom the glory belongs of originating many important discoveries, but who seldom added to this the easier, yet still rarer, merit, of expressing those discoveries in language logically unexceptionable. No one can read the metaphysicians of the last two centuries, especially those of our own country, without acknowledging that (with one or two exceptions, among whom the great name of Hobbes stands preeminent) the very best of them are often wanting either in the determinateness of thought, or the command over language, which would make their words express shortly, precisely, and unambiguously, the very thing they mean. Accordingly, there are few of the great truths of psychology which are not, in almost all writings antecedent to the present century, wrapped up in phrases more or less equivocal and vague, through which one^cperson^c may clearly see what is really within, but another, of perhaps equal powers, will, in the words of Locke, instead of “seizing the scope” of the speculation, “stick in the incidents.”^[*]

Upon such vague phrases Mr. Bailey has wasted his strength, never placing the truth which they represented plainly and unambiguously before his mind; and he imagines himself to have triumphed over the doctrine, while he has been kept from contact with it by a rampart of words which he himself has helped to raise.

One of the principal of these phrases is Perception, a word which has wrought almost as notable mischief in metaphysics as the word Idea. The writer who first made Perception a word of mark and likelihood in mental philosophy was Reid, who made use of it as a means of begging several of the questions in dispute between himself and his antagonists. Mr. Bailey, with, we admit, good warrant from precedent, has throughout his book darkened the discussion, by stating the question, not thus:—What information do we gain, or what facts do we learn, by the sense of sight? but thus:—What do we perceive by the eye, or what are our perceptions of sight? The word seems made on purpose to confuse the distinction between what the eye tells us directly, and what it teaches by way of inference; and we shall presently see how completely, in our author’s case, the cause has produced its effect.

It is in the first section of his second chapter that the author enters upon his argument; and in this he inquires whether “outness” (as it is termed by Berkeley) is “immediately of itself perceived by sight?”^[†] —in other words, whether we naturally, and antecedently to experience, see things to be external to ourselves.

Berkeley alleged that to a person born blind, and suddenly^denabled^d to see, all objects would seem to be in his eye, or rather, in his mind. It would be a more correct^eversion^e , however, of the theory, to say that such a person would at first have no conception of in or out, and would only be conscious of colours, but not of objects. When by his sense of touch he became acquainted with objects, and had time to associate mentally the objects he touched with the colours he saw, then, and not till then, would he begin to see objects. Or, adopting Mr. Bailey’s summary statement of Berkeley’s views,

To this Mr. Bailey replies, that the law of mind by which one thing suggests another, cannot produce any such effect as the one here ascribed to it. If we have had an internal feeling A, at the same time with an external sensation B, and this conjunction has occurred often, the two will in time suggest one another: when the internal feeling occurs, it will bring to mind the external one, and vice versâ. But Berkeley’s theory, he says, demands more than this. Berkeley maintains that because the internal feeling has been found to be accompanied by the external one, it will, when experienced alone, not only suggest the external sensation, “but absolutely be regarded as external itself, or rather, be converted into the perception of an external object;”^[†] —just as if one were to assert that the sound “rose,” by suggesting the visible flower, became itself visible. “It may be asserted,” says Mr. Bailey, “without hesitation, that there is nothing in the whole operations of the human mind analogous to such a process:”^[‡] and it may be asserted as unhesitatingly that Berkeley’s theory implies no such absurdity.

The internal feeling which, when received by sight, becomes a sign of the presence of an external object, is a sensation of colour. Does Berkeley pretend, or is it a fact, that this sensation is ever regarded as external? Certainly not. What we regard as external is not the sensation, but the cause of the sensation—the thing which by its presence is supposed to give rise to the sensation: the coloured object, or the quality residing in that object, which we term its colour. Berkeley is not, as Mr. Bailey supposes, bound to show that the sensation of colour is “converted into the perception of an external object,” since nobody is bound to prove a proposition which nobody can understand. Expressed in unequivocal language, what Mr. Bailey calls the perception of an object is simply a judgment of the intellect that an object is present. Berkeley is not called upon to show that the sensation of colour can be “converted” into this judgment, because his theory requires no such conversion. It requires that the judgment should follow as an inference from the sensation, and Berkeley is bound to show that this is possible. And this he can do, since there is no law of mind more familiar than that by which, when two things have constantly been experienced together, we infer from the presence of the one the presence of the other.

Thus it is, that from using the obscure word “perception” instead of the intelligible words “sensation” and “judgment” or “inference,” our author leaves his antagonist unanswered, and triumphs over a shadow. It is true that Berkeley and Berkeley’s adherents have set him the example of this misleading phraseology. But Mr. Bailey lives in a more accurate age, and should use language more accurately.

In the second section (we pass over some observations in the first, to which the answer is obvious) the author proceeds to inquire whether we naturally see things at different distances, or whether our perception by the eye of distance from us, results (as Berkeley contends) from an association, formed by experience, between the usual signs of distance, and ideas of space originally derived from the touch.

And here Mr. Bailey has to confute an assertion of Berkeley, that “Distance of itself and immediately cannot be seen. For distance being a line directed endwise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter;”^[*] or, as Adam Smith has completed the expression of the idea, the distance of an object from the eye “must appear to it but as one point.”^[†]

It is not easy to comprehend how the meaning of this argument can be unintelligible, we do not say to a person of Mr. Bailey’s acquirements, but to any one who knows as much of optics as is now commonly taught in children’s books. Our author, however, professes himself unable to understand it, but surmises that it proceeds on the fallacy of supposing that we “see the rays of light”^[‡]fthat^f come from the object,^gwhich^g it is evident we do not.

The argument supposes no such thing. The argument is this. We cannot see anything which is not painted on our retina; and we see things alike or unlike, according as they are painted on the retina alike or unlike. The distance between an object to our right and an object to our left is a line presented sideways, and is therefore painted on our retina as a line; the distance of an object from us is a line presented^hendways^h , and is represented on the retina by a point. It seems obvious, therefore, that we must be able, by the eye alone, to discriminate between unequal distances of the former kind, but not of the latter. Unequal lines drawn across our sphere of vision, we can see to be unequal, because the lines which image them in the eye are also unequal. But the distances of objects from us are represented on our retina in all cases by single points; and all points being equal, all such distances must appear equal, or rather, we are unable to see them in the character of distances at all.

This argument, which involves no premises but what all admit, does positively prove that distance from us cannot be seen in the way in which we see the distances (or rather apparent distances) of objects from one another, namely, by the original powers of the sense of sight. Berkeley’s argumentⁱ proves conclusively that distance from the eye is not seen, but inferred. It cannot be seen as other things are seen, because it projects no image on the retina; it must be seen indirectly, that is, not seen, but judged of from signs,—namely, from those differences in the appearance of an object, whether in respect of magnitude or colour, which are physically consequent upon its being at a greater or^j a smaller distance.

And here, so far as concerns one principal part of the question at issue, the argument might close. It is demonstrated that the distance of an object is not “perceived” directly, but by means of intermediate signs; not seen by the eye, but inferred by the mind. And this is not only the most essential, but the only paradoxical part of Berkeley’s theory.

It is true, there remains a supposition which our author may adopt, and which, from occasional expressions, it^kmight^k be concluded that he is willing to adopt. He may give up the point of actually seeing distance, and admitting that we do not see it, but judge of it from evidence, he may maintain that the interpretation of that evidence is intuitive, and not the result of experience. He may say that we do not see an object to be^lfarther^l off, but infer it to be so from its looking smaller; not, however, because we have heretofore observed that such is the case, but by a natural instinct, which precedes experience, and anticipates its results.

There are thus two possible forms of our author’s doctrine. He may affirm that we are apprised of distance through the eye, by actually seeing it; or he may say with Berkeley,^[*] that remoteness is not seen, but inferred from paleness of colour and diminution of apparent magnitude,—but may differ from him by asserting that the inference is instinctive, instead of the slow result of gradual experience. The former doctrine is demonstrably false; the latter not so; it may perhaps be refuted, but cannot be taxed with absurdity.

^mThe^m author, however, from the imperfect way in which he has conceived the question, seems never to have finally made his choice between these two suppositions.^* When he draws near to close quarters (he never comes quite close), and is compelled to express himself with a nearer than usual approach to precision, his language^pseems to imply^p that the perception of distance from us is not a process of sense, but an instinctive inference of the mind. But he cannot have consciously elected this doctrine, to the exclusion of the other, or he would scarcely make the large use he does, for confirming his theory, of its supposed conformity to the “universal impressions of mankind.”^[*] To those natural impressions his doctrine, thus understood, is as repugnant as Berkeley’s. Mankind, when they use their eyesight to estimate the distance of an object, do not fancy themselves to be interpreting signs; they are not conscious that they are judging by the apparent smallness of the object, and by the loss of brilliancy which it sustains from the intervening atmosphere. If their unreflecting opinion goes for anything, it goes to prove that we actually see distance; for they are unaware of any difference between the process of seeing the distance of the tree from the house, and seeing the distance of the house from their eye.

If the author, abandoning his claim to^qhave^q common prejudices on his side, should finally acquiesce in the opinion that what he calls our perception of nearness and remoteness by the eye, is an instinctive interpretation of those variations in colour and apparent magnitude which really do accompany varieties of distance; his doctrine will then lie open to only one objection—the superfluousness of assuming an instinct to account for that, which knowledge derived from experience will so well explain. Long before a child gives evidence of distinguishing distances by the eye with any approach to accuracy, he has had time more than enough to learn from experience the correspondence between greater distance to the outstretched arm, and smaller magnitude to the eye. At any age at which a child is capable of forming expectations from past experience, he must have had experience of this correspondence, and must have learnt to ground expectations upon it.^r

Mr. Bailey next takes notice of the argument which Berkeley’s followers have drawn from the effect of pictures; from the fact that things may be so represented on a flat surface as to deceive the sight. They conclude from this, that though we appear to see solidity, we in truth only infer it from signs; because we equally appear to see it when the solidity is no longer present, provided the signs are. This argument, therefore, aims at proving no more than that what we call seeing solidity is inferring solidity, a proposition which, as we have already observed, our author could afford to admit. Nevertheless, he understands this argument no better than he understood the one which preceded it. He says it is “Virtually arguing that because planes can be made to look solid, solid objects are originally seen plane. . . . Solid objects, they say, must be originally seen as plane, because they may be delineated on a plane surface so as to look^ssolid:”^[*] which^s, as he justly says, would be an unwarranted inference.

But Mr. Bailey misconceives the scope of the argument to which he fancies that he is replying. The fact that a plane may be mistaken for a solid, is not urged to show that a solid must, but only that it may, be seen originally as a plane. Since even a plane, so coloured as to make the same image on the retina which a solid would^tmake^t , is mistaken for a solid, without doubt an actual solid will be^urecognised as^u such, even if it be seen in no other manner than as the plane is. The fact that we recognise a solid as a solid, is no proof that so far as the mere eye is concerned we do not see it as a plane; since a picture, which is^vcertainly^v seen only as a plane, is yet^wtaken for^w a solid, and appears to the person himself to be seen as such.

We proceed to another of our author’s arguments.^[†] If it were true, he says, that we originally see all objects in a party-coloured plane, but afterwards find by experience that this visual appearance is uniformly connected with a tangible object, we should indeed associate the two ideas, but this subsequent association would not alter the original perception. If we before saw a party-coloured plane, we should continue to see it. Though the idea of a tangible object would be uniformly suggested, the impression of sight which suggested it would in no wise be changed. As no touching or handling can make us see the images in a mirror to be on the surface, but we cannot help seeing them beyond it, so if all objects, near and remote, appeared to the sight to be at the same distance, all the touching or feeling in the world could not make us see them to be at various distances.

Here, again, the author has permitted a set of indefinite phrases to intercept his view of the position which he has undertaken to subvert. It is quite true that no association between the sight and the touch will ever make us see anything that the eyesight has not the power of showing us. If we originally see only a party-coloured plane, no touching or handling will ever make us see anything more. But touching and handling may well make us infer something more; and, according to Berkeley’s theory, this is all it needs to do. The very pith and marrow of the theory is, that what Mr. Bailey calls seeing things at various distances is, in truth, inferring them to be so, and that neither at first nor at last do we actually see anything but the colours.^x Berkeley, therefore, is under no necessity of affirming that experience or association alters the nature of our perceptions of sense. All that belongs to sense, according to him, remains the same; what experience does is to superadd to the impression of sense an instantaneous act of judgment.

In what we have already written we have answered the essential part of so much of our author’s argument, that we may forbear to follow him into the various modes of statement by which he endeavours to adapt his refutation to the varieties of Berkeley’s language. The same radical misconception pervades them all—that of representing Berkeley as pretending that a conception derived from touch is actually transmuted into a perception of sight. It is still, as before, the word perception which disguises from our author the point in issue. He cannot see that what he calls a perception of sight is simply a judgment of the intellect, inferring from a sensation of sight the presence of an object. The idea of an object, being an idea derived from touch, ideas of touch are the foundation of this judgment of the intellect; but it is not therefore necessary to consider them as being, in any sense whatever of the term, “transmuted,” either into a judgment or into a perception.

Mr. Bailey’s next argument is the statement of a psychological fact, which, as a fact, is correct, and a necessary completion and explanation of the theory with which he imagines it to conflict. According to Berkeley’s doctrine, says Mr. Bailey,^[*] what takes place when we appear to ourselves to see distance, is merely a close and rapid suggestion of tangible distance, called up by certain visual appearances or signs; and the mind (as is its custom) does not dwell upon the sign, nor remember even the next minute that precise appearance of the object, which indicated the distance, but rushes at once from the sign to the thing signified. And accordingly, a person learning to draw, finds it very difficult to recall accurately the visual appearance, or, even when the scene is before his eyes, to imitate on paper the apparent positions and figures, without ever altering them by the substitution of the real ones. So inveterate is the habit of neglecting the sign and attending only to the thing signified, that it is a hard and difficult task to delineate objects as we see them; our tendency is always to delineate them as we know them to be.

Now, if these doctrines be true, argues our author—if visible appearances are mere signs, which the mind rapidly glides over, and hurries to the tactual perceptions with which they are associated, we ought surely to be very distinctly conscious of the tactual reminiscences supposed to be thus suggested. Yet the fact is, that when we look at objects, and judge of their positions and distances, we have so little consciousness of any tactual ideas, that it is almost questionable whether any are suggested at all. It is, in fact, with great difficulty that we recall this particular class of tactual impressions. Our ideas of tangible distance, form, and magnitude, instead of being peculiarly distinct, are peculiarly vague and shadowy; for the simple reason, that we are not in the habit of attending to those particular sensations of touch. And accordingly, our consciousness testifies that when we correct an erroneous visual impression of distance, we do so by comparing and collating it, not with tactual impressions, but with visual impressions received under different circumstances. When, in looking along an avenue of trees, the more remote of the trees appear to my eye to be close together, and when I correct this impression, and judge them to be farther apart than they appear, the thought which I recall is not the idea of a tangible space, but the recollection of the visible space which I saw intervening between them on some nearer view, or which I have seen to lie between the adjacent trees of other similar avenues.

In this argument, to which we have endeavoured to do no injustice in the mode of stating it, the facts alleged are indisputable. It is true that our ordinary processes of thought and judgment respecting outward objects are carried on, not by means of tactual ideas, but of visual ideas which have acquired a tactual signification; and that this extensive supersession of the function of tactual ideas renders many of them dim, confused, and difficult to be recalled. But these facts, in themselves interesting and worthy of notice, are of no avail to prove that the visual ideas, which thus become our main symbols of tangible objects, have their tactual signification naturally, or obtain it from any other source than experience. At the age at which a child first learns that a diminution in brightness and in apparent magnitude implies increase of distance, the child’s ideas of tangible extension and magnitude are not faint and faded, but fresh and^yvigorous^y . As for the subsequent fact, that when the suggesting power of the sign has been often exercised, our consciousness not only of the sign itself, but of much of what is signified by the sign, becomes much less acute, so accomplished a metaphysician as Mr. Bailey cannot be ignorant that this is the nature of all signs. It will not, for example, be asserted that the words of any language are significant by nature, or derive their power of suggesting ideas from any cause but association alone; yet nothing can be more notorious than that a word with which we are very familiar, is heard or uttered, and does its work as a sign, with the faintest possible suggestion of most of the sensible ideas which compose its meaning. For example, the word “country:” a politician may reason, or an orator may expatiate, with the utmost cogency and effect, on the interests of the country, the prospects of the country; but in doing this have they distinctly present to the mind’s eye the cornfields and meadows, the workshops and farmhouses, the thronged manufactories and family circles, which are the real concrete signification of the word? Assuredly not: words, as used on common occasions, suggest no more of the ideas habitually associated with them, than the smallest portion that will enable the mind to do what those common occasions require; and it is only to persons of more than ordinary vividness of imagination, that the names of things ever recall more than the meagrest outline of even their own conceptions of^zthe^z things.

Now if this be true of words, which are conventional signs, it is not less true of natural signs, such as our sensations of sight, which derive their power of suggestion not from convention, but from always occurring in conjunction with the things which they suggest. When once the visual appearances, from long experience, suggest the tactual impressions with extreme readiness and familiarity, it would be contrary to all we know of association to suppose that they will continue to suggest them with the original vivacity and force. As the mind, without attending to the sign, runs on to the thing signified, so does it also, without attending to the thing signified, run on to whatever else that thing suggests. Those vivid sensations of the touch and of the muscular frame from which the infant learned his first ideas of distance, would, when the necessity has ceased for actively attending to them, be more and more dimly recalled, while enough only would be distinctly suggested to enable the mind to go on to what it has next to do. The amount of distinct suggestion, and its precise nature, probably differ in different individuals; and in each the visual sign suggests, not so much the tangible distance, as the measure by which, with that person, tangible distances are accustomed to be estimated. In our own experience we should say, that when we look at an object to judge of its distance from us, the idea suggested is commonly that of the length of time, or the quantity of motion, which would be requisite for reaching^ato^a the object if near to us, or walking up to it if at a distance.

The indistinctness, therefore, of our ideas of tactual extension and magnitude, and the fact of our carrying on most of our mental processes by means of their visual signs, without distinctly recalling the tactual impressions upon which our ideas of extension and magnitude were originally grounded, is no argument against Berkeley’s theory, but is exactly what, from the laws of association, we should expect to happen supposing that theory to be true. And our author has failed, by this as much as by his other arguments, to strike an effective blow at the theory.

We may here close our examination of the controversial, and properly argumentative part of the book. The remainder of it is an attempt to show, by actual observation, that distances are distinguished by the eye before there has been time to form any association between the sight and the touch, and even before the sense of touch has been sufficiently exercised to be capable of yielding accurate ideas.

The facts adduced are of three kinds: relating^beither^b to human infants, to the young of the lower animals, or to persons born blind, and afterwards^crendered capable of^c sight.

Our author’s facts relating to human infants are singularly inconclusive. They are chiefly intended to show that the sense of sight in a child is developed earlier than the sense of touch, because a child recognises persons and objects by the sight, when his expertness in using his hands so as to acquire tactual ideas is still of the very lowest order. From this Mr. Bailey infers, or seems to infer, that the infant judges of objects by the sense of sight, before he has sensations of touch whereby to judge of them. It is singular that so able a thinker should not have adverted to the fact, that the child may experience sensations of touch from two sources, namely, either from the objects which he touches, or from those which touch him. A child^d six months old is not very skilful in handling objects so as to acquire an accurate notion of their distance and shape; but persons and things are continually touching the child, and seldom without his experiencing simultaneously some peculiar visual appearance. It cannot, therefore, be long before he associates at least those contacts which are pleasurable or painful, with the corresponding visual sensations; and when this association is formed, he will, on seeing the visual appearances, give signs of intelligence; not from recognising the object, for as an object there is not a shadow of proof that he yet recognises it, but simply because the sensation of sight excites the expectation of the accustomed pleasure or pain. That anything beyond this takes place in an infant’s mind at an age at which it has not yet acquired tactual notions of distance and magnitude, Mr. Bailey has not proved, and would find it difficult to prove.

The facts relating to the young of the lower animals are more to the point, and have been long felt to be a real stumbling-block in the way of the theory.

Again,

It is asserted, and we know of no reason to doubt the fact, that chickens will pick up corn without difficulty as soon as they are hatched.

These are strong facts, and though we cannot confirm them from our own knowledge, still, as they are denied by no one, we presume they must be received as unquestionable. Some of the strongest adherents of Berkeley’s doctrine, particularly Dugald Stewart and Brown,^[‡] have felt compelled by these facts to allow, that, in many of the lower animals, the perception of distance by the eye is connate and instinctive. In this admission these philosophers saw no inconsistency, it being an acknowledged truth that brutes have many instincts, of which man is reduced to supply the place by acquired knowledge. Mr. Bailey, however, goes further, and says, here is proof that the eye is at least an organ capable of a direct and intuitive perception of distance.^[§] Here, therefore, is at all events a complete refutation of Berkeley, who asserts that such a direct perception is organically impossible.^[∥]

This is one of the passages which^elook as if our author had^e never quite settled with himself whether the “perception of distance” by the eye is a real function of that organ, or is that very process of interpreting visible signs which Berkeley contends for, except that it is instinctive instead of being the result of experience. It is against the former hypothesis only that^fthe argument of Berkeley, which Mr. Bailey refers to,^f is directed. To refute him, therefore, it would be necessary to show, not only that animals can distinguish distance as soon as they are born, but that they distinguish it by the sight itself, and not by interpretation of signs. Yet the other hypothesis is the one which, in order to treat our author fairly, we^gwere^g obliged to suppose him to adopt.

If the eye of a brute is a different kind of organ from a human eye, there is no reasoning from one to the other; brutes may be capable of seeing distance and solidity, and yet this will be no reason for supposing that men are capable. But if in a brute, as in a man, it be a necessary condition of vision that an image corresponding to the object^hshould^h be formed on the retina, then in a brute, as in a man, it is impossible that two lines should seem of unequal length, which are both alike represented on the retina by points. There will be no resource either in man or beast for judging of remoteness, except from difference in the degrees of brightness and of visible magnitude; and the only doubt will be whether these natural signs are interpreted instinctively, or by virtue of previous experience.

Now if brutes have really an instinct for interpreting these appearances,—if they are intuitively capable of drawing, without experience, the inferences which experience would warrant—we allow it is physiologically probable that some vestige of a similar instinct exists in human beings; although, as in many other cases, the instinctive property, which might perhaps be observable in idiots, is overruled and superseded by the superior force of that rational faculty which grounds its judgments upon experience. But in truth, our knowledge of the mental operations of animals is too imperfect to enable us to affirm positively that they have this instinct. We know to a certain extent the external acts of animals, but know not from what inward promptings, or on what outward indications, those acts are performed. For example, as a judicious critic in the Spectator newspaper has remarked, some of the motions which are supposed to show that young animals can see distance immediately after birth, are performed equally by those which are born blind; kittens and puppies seek the teat as well as calves and lambs.^[*] We are not aware if the experiment was ever tried whether a blind duckling will run to the water; it would not be more surprising than many facts in the history of the lower animals which are well known to be true. Those animals have to us an inexplicable facility both of finding and of selecting the objects which their wants require, without, as far as we can perceive, any sufficient opportunities of experience. But it is a question which we should like to see examined by a good observer, to what extent it is their eyesight which guides them to the performance of theseⁱwonders.ⁱ At all events, man has not these same facilities; man cannot build in hexagons by an instinctive faculty, though bees can.

We do not wish to evade a question which we are unable to solve, or to blink the fact that the case of the lower animals is the most serious difficulty which the theory of Berkeley has to encounter. But we maintain that it is a difficulty only, not a refutation; and that, even granting the full extent of what is contended for, the theory would still be practically true for human beings. Mr. Bailey allows that infants do not manifest that early perception of distance which some animals do; he imputes this, plausibly enough, to the comparative immaturity of their organs at the period of birth.^[*] But before the time when, according to him, the organs have attained sufficient maturity for manifesting this original power, experience has furnished impressions and formed associations, which, without supposing any such power, will account for all which the eyes can do in the way of observation; and there is ample evidence that our judgments of outward things from visual signs are practically, throughout life, regulated by these acquired associations.

The facts which relate to young children and the young of the lower animals being disposed of, there remain those derived from persons born blind, and relieved from blindness at a mature age. These, if well authenticated, would be the most valuable facts of all, for the human species. They exhibit to us, in the very act of learning to see, not children or brutes, but persons capable of observing and describing their impressions, and whose judgments of objects from touch are already accurate and steady. It is a disagreeable reflection, to how great an extent these rare and valuable opportunities have been lost; how slightly and carelessly cases so interesting to science have been observed, and how scanty and insufficient is the information which has been recorded concerning them.

The best known case, that of the youth who was couched by Cheselden,^[†] has always been deemed strongly confirmatory of Berkeley’s doctrine. Mr. Bailey has however attempted, we cannot think with any success, to maintain the contrary. Cheselden’s patient said that all objects seemed to touch his eyes, as what he felt did his skin. There has been much discussion (in which our author takes an active part)^[‡] as to what the boy may have meant by touching his eyes; we think quite needlessly. That the objects touched him was obviously a mere supposition, which he made because it was with his eyes that he perceived them. From his experience of touch, perception of an object and contact with it were, no doubt, indissolubly associated in his mind. But he would scarcely have said that all objects seemed to touch his eyes, if some of them had appeared farther off than others. The case, therefore, as far as anything can be concluded from one instance, seems to prove completely that we are at first incapable of seeing things at unequal distances. Our author curiously argues that the boy might have expressed himself as he did without regarding all visible objects as equally near; for, says he, the boy compared his visual impressions to impressions of touch, and we do not consider all tangible objects as equally near. True, we do not; but if we were to say that all objects seemed simultaneously to touch our hand, it would require some ingenuity to reconcile this assertion with the fact that we were, at that very moment,^jperceiving^j them to be at different distances from it.

Another specimen of our author’s power of explaining away evidence, is to be found in his remark, that in the whole of Cheselden’s narrative “There is nothing from which we can learn or infer—not a whisper of evidence to prove—that the boy’s subsequent perceptions of visible distance had been acquired by means of the touch.”^[*]

What thinks Mr. Bailey of this passage, quoted by himself:

Mr. Bailey will^knot wish to^k shelter himself under the subterfuge that the process of learning to see, which Cheselden here so graphically describes, has reference to form only, and not to distance. Cheselden exhibits the boy actively engaged in teaching himself by the touch to judge of forms by the eye; and in this process he could not avoid learning also to judge of distances: much more rapidly, indeed, than of forms, the ideas concerned being much simpler.

After this example, the reader may dispense with our entering into the details of five other cases which our author discusses. Some of these cases are more, others less, favourable in appearance to Berkeley’s theory; but, as our author himself remarks, they all bear evidence that the observers were not duly aware of the psychological difficulties of the problem. The point which Mr. Bailey most dwells on as conclusive in his favour, is that two of the patients could distinguish by the unassisted eye whether an object was brought nearer or carried^lfarther^l from them.^[*] This, indeed, would be decisive of the question, if the experiments had been fair ones. But in one of these cases the patient was of mature years, and the trial not made till the eighteenth day after the operation, by which time a middle-aged woman might well have acquired the experience necessary for distinguishing so simple a phenomenon. In the other of the two cases, the patient, a boy seven years old, had been capable, before the operation, of distinguishing colours “when they were very strong and held close to the eye;”^[†] and had probably, therefore, had the capacity of observing, antecedently to the operation, that colours grow fainter when the coloured object is removed further off.

On the whole, then, it will probably be the opinion of the^mphilosophical^m reader, that neither by his facts nor by his arguments has Mr. Bailey thrown any new light upon the question, but has left Berkeley’s Theory precisely as he found it, subject, as it has always been, to the acknowledged difficulty arising from the motions of young animals, but otherwise unshaken, and to all appearance unshakeable.

* * * * *

Mr. Bailey having published a reply^* to the preceding criticism, it is right to subjoin the following

REJOINDER TO MR. BAILEY’S REPLY

in this pamphlet Mr. Bailey replies to our article of last October, and to a paper in Blackwood’s Magazine on the same subject.^[‡] Between Mr. Bailey and the writer in Blackwood we are not called upon to interfere. Of what he has said in answer to our own comments, our respect for him, as well as the scientific interest of the subject, compel us to take some notice; but we cannot venture to inflict upon our readers that detailed analysis of his arguments which would be necessary to satisfy him that we had duly considered them. We prefer resting our case on what we have already written, and on a comparison between that and what is offered in reply to it. We are really afraid lest in any attempt to state the substance of Mr. Bailey’s arguments, we should unwittingly leave out something which perhaps forms an essential part of them; so little do we feel capable of comprehending what it is which gives them the conclusiveness they possess in his eyes. And it is the more desirable that the reader should not take our word respecting Mr. Bailey’s opinions, as it appears that on one important point we have, in sheer love of justice and courtesy to Mr. Bailey, misrepresented them.

We remarked that a dissentient from Berkeley’s doctrine might adopt either of two theories; he might assert that we actually see distance, which is one doctrine; or he might admit that we only infer the distance of an object, from the diminution of its apparent size and apparent brilliancy, but might say that this inference is not made from experience, but by instinct or intuition. We surmised that Mr. Bailey was in a state of indecision between these two theories, but with a leaning towards the latter. In this it seems we were wrong, for he not only holds steadily to the former of the two doctrines, but finds it “inexplicable how any one of honesty and intelligence” could so far misunderstand him as to imagine otherwise, “except on the supposition of greater haste than was compatible with due examination.”^[*] We can assure Mr. Bailey that our mistake—since mistake it was—arose solely from an honest desire to do him justice. Of the two opinions, we, in all candour, attributed to him the one which appeared to us least unreasonable, and most difficult satisfactorily to refute. It would have abridged our labour very much if we had thought ourselves at liberty to ascribe to him the opinion he now avows. That opinion we thought, and continue to think, palpably untenable, being inconsistent with admitted facts, while the other, from the nature of the case, can only be combated by negative evidence.

The notion that distance from the eye can be directly seen, needs, we conceive, no other refutation than Berkeley’s. We can see nothing except in so far as it is represented on our retina; and things which are represented on our retina exactly alike, will be seen alike. The distances of all objects from the eye, being lines directed endwise to the retina, can only project themselves upon it by single points, that is to say, exactly alike; therefore they are seen exactly alike. This, which is Berkeley’s argument, Mr. Bailey, in his pamphlet, disposes of by saying that it supposes the distances to be “material or physical lines,” since “imaginary or hypothetical lines can project no points on the retina.”^[*] We must again reiterate our fear of misrepresenting Mr. Bailey, for we can scarcely suppose him to mean (what he seems to say) that only bodies can be represented on the retina, and not the blank spaces between bodies; or else, that we indeed see bodies when, and only when, they are imaged on the retina, but see the spaces between them without any such optical equivalent. The fact surely is, that we see bodies and their distances by precisely the same mechanism. We see two stars, if they are imaged on the retina, and not otherwise; we see the interval between those stars, if there is an interval on the retina between the two images, and if there is no such interval we see it not. Now, as the interval between an object andⁿourⁿ eye has not any interval answering to it on the retina, we do not see it. Surely this argument does not depend upon an implied assumption that the intervals between objects are physical lines joining them.

This is Mr. Bailey’s answer to one of our^oarguments. Whether^o he has succeeded any better in replying to the remainder of them, we must leave it to others to judge.

Mr. Bailey, in his reply, insists very much on a point which we passed over in our former article—the confirmation which^phe imagines his theory^p to derive from^qMr.^q Wheatstone’s discoveries respecting binocular vision, exhibited in the phenomena of the stereoscope.^[†] We think Mr. Bailey must admit, on further consideration, that these phenomena (as he himself says of Cheselden’s observations)^* are equally consistent with both theories. The stereoscope makes us see, or appear to see, solidity; it makes us look upon a flat picture of an object, and have, more completely than we ever had before, the semblance of seeing the object in three dimensions. But how is this done? Merely by imitating on a plane, more exactly than was ever done before, the precise sensations of colour and visible form which we habitually have when a solid object, a body in three dimensions, is presented to us. The stereoscope produces a more complete illusion than a mere picture, because it does what no previous picture ever did—it allows for, and imitates, the two different sets of ocular appearances which we receive from an object very near to us when we look at it with both our eyes. If either theory could derive support from this experiment, it would surely be that which supposes our perceptions of solidity to be inferences rapidly drawn from visual impressions confined to two dimensions. But we do not insist upon this, as we deem the argument from pictures, in any of its forms, only valid to prove, not the truth of Berkeley’s theory, but its sufficiency to explain the phenomena; or, as we before expressed it [p. 256 above], that a solid may, not that it must, be seen originally as a plane.

In the course of his remarks, Mr. Bailey takes frequent opportunities of animadverting on the tone of our article, in a manner evincing at least as much sensitiveness to what he deems hostile criticism, as is at all compatible with the character of a philosopher.^[*] We were so entirely unconscious of having laid ourselves open to this kind of^sreproof^s , as to have flattered ourselves that the style and tone of our criticism on a single opinion of Mr. Bailey, bore indubitable marks of the unfeigned respect which we entertain for his general powers; nor are we aware of having shown any other “bluntness,” “confidence,” or “arrogance,”^[†] than are implied in thinking ourselves right, and, by consequence, Mr. Bailey wrong. We certainly did not feel ourselves required, by consideration for him, to state our difference of opinion with pretended hesitation. We should not have written on the subject unless we had been able to form a decided opinion on it; and, having done so, to have expressed that opinion otherwise than decidedly would have been cowardice, not modesty; it would have been sacrificing our conviction of truth to fear of offence. To dispute the soundness of a man’s doctrines and the conclusiveness of his arguments, may always be interpreted as an assumption of superiority over him: true courtesy, however, between thinkers, is not shown by refraining from this sort of assumption, but by tolerating it in one another; and we claim from Mr. Bailey this tolerance, as we, on our part, sincerely and cheerfully concede to him the like.

[[*] ]See George Berkeley, An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, in The Works of George Berkeley, ed. Alexander Campbell Fraser, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871), Vol. I, pp. 25-112.

[a-a]+59, 67

[b]42 or,

[c-c]42 man

[[*] ]See John Locke, “Several Letters to Anthony Collins, Esq.,” in Works, Vol. X, p. 285.

[[†] ]Bailey, p. 20; see Berkeley, An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, Works, Vol. I, p. 55.

[d-d]42 made

[e-e]42 representation

[[*] ]Bailey, pp. 20-1.

[[†] ]Ibid., p. 21.

[[‡] ]Ibid.

[[*] ]Bailey, p. 38; the quotation is from Berkeley, Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, Works, Vol. I, p. 35.

[[†] ]Bailey, p. 39; the quotation is from Adam Smith, “Of the External Senses,” in Essays on Philosophical Subjects (London: Cadell and Davies, 1795), p. 216.

[[‡] ]See Bailey, pp. 39-40.

[f-f]42 which

[g-g]42 when

[h-h]42 endwise

[i]42 proves, and

[j]42 at

[k-k]42 may

[l-l]42 further

[[*] ]See Essay, Works, Vol. I, pp. 35-6.

[m-m]42 Our

[* ][59] Mr. Bailey has since explained that henadheresn to the theory of direct vision, andorepudiateso that of instinctive interpretation of signs. [See A Letter to a Philosopher, pp. 48, 58, 62-3.]

[p-p]42 implies

[[*] ]Bailey, p. 37.

[q-q]42 having

[r]42 How the case may be with the lower animals is a more obscure question: we shall come to it in due order.

[s-s]42 solid.” Which

[[*] ]Bailey, pp. 44-5.

[t-t]+59, 67

[u-u]42 deemed to be] 59 perceived to be

[v-v]42 certainly

[w-w]42, 59 recognised as

[[†] ]Ibid., pp. 61-2.

[x]42 Nay, Mr. Bailey himself occasionally seems to concede this, and to admit that perceiving things at various distances is not an act of sight, but of inference, though of inference which is instinctive and intuitive.

[[*] ]Bailey, pp. 84ff.

[y-y]42 clear

[z-z]42 those

[a-a]+59, 67

[b-b]+59, 67

[c-c]42, 59 restored to

[d]42 of

[[*] ]Bailey, p. 29; see John Davy, ed., The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy, 9 vols. (London: Smith, Elder, 1839-40), Vol. I, pp. 227-8.

[[†] ]Bailey, pp. 149-50.

[[‡] ]See Stewart, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. III, p. 338; Thomas Brown, Lectures on The Philosophy of the Human Mind (Edinburgh: Tait, 1820), Lecture xxviii (Section on Vision).

[[§] ]Bailey, p. 151.

[[∥] ]See Essay, Works, Vol. I, p. 35.

[e-e]42 prove that our author has

[f-f]42 Berkeley’s argument

[g-g]42, 59 are

[h-h]42 shall

[[*] ]Anon., “Bailey’s Review of Berkeley’s Theory of Vision,” Spectator, XV (8 Jan., 1842), 41.

[i-i]42 wonders?

[[*] ]Bailey, p. 153.

[[†] ]See William Cheselden, “An Account of some Observations,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, XXXV (1728), 447-50.

[[‡] ]See Bailey, pp. 173-5.

[j-j]42 actually considering

[[*] ]Ibid., p. 183.

[[†] ]Ibid., p. 178; quoted from Cheselden, p. 448.

[k-k]42 scarcely

[l-l]42 further

[[*] ]See Bailey, pp. 193ff. The two cases referred to (Bailey cites a third, as described by Home) are reported in James Wardrop, “Case of a Lady born blind,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, CXVI (1826), Pt. 3, 529-40 (see Bailey, pp. 203-11); and James Ware, “Case of a young Gentleman,” ibid., XCI (1801), Pt. 2, 382-96 (see Bailey, pp. 193-5).

[[†] ]Bailey, p. 93.

[m-m]+59, 67

[* ]A Letter to a Philosopher, in Reply to some recent Attempts to vindicate “Berkeley’s Theory of Vision,” and in further Elucidation of its Unsoundness. [London: Ridgway, 1843.]

[[‡] ]James Ferrier, “Berkeley and Idealism,” Blackwood’s Magazine, LI (June, 1842), 812-30.

[[*] ]A Letter to a Philosopher, p. 49.

[[*] ]Ibid., p. 36.

[n-n]43 an [printer’s error; corrected in ink in Somerville College copy of 43]

[o-o]43 arguments; whether

[p-p]43 his theory is supposed

[q-q]43 Professor

[[†] ]See Charles Wheatstone, “Contributions to the Physiology of Vision,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, CXXVIII (1838), 371-94; Bailey, A Letter, pp. 46-7.

[* ]See page 59 of the pamphlet [i.e., A Letter]. Without arguing this point with our author, we will, however, take note of an acknowledgment here made by him, which is of some importance. Although the boy couched by Cheselden could, according to Mr. Bailey, see distances, without any previous process of comparing his visual sensations with actual experience, Mr. Bailey admits that he still had to go through this very process of comparison before he could know that the distances which he saw corresponded with those he previously knew by touch. We do not wish to lay more stress upon this admission than belongs to it, but it seems to us very like arsurrenderr of the whole question. If the boy did not at once perceive whether the distances he saw were or were not the same with those he already knew, then we do not really see distances. If we saw distances, we should not need to learn by experience what distances we saw. We should at once recognise an object to be at the distance we saw it at; and should confidently expect that the indications of touch would correspond. This expectation might be ill-grounded, for we might see the distances incorrectly, but then the result would be error; not perplexity, and inability to judge at all, as was the case with Cheselden’s patient.

[[*] ]See, e.g., pp. 38, 41, 59.

[s-s]43 attack

[[†] ]P. 4.

[* ][59] Mr. Bailey has since explained that henadheresn to the theory of direct vision, andorepudiateso that of instinctive interpretation of signs. [See A Letter to a Philosopher, pp. 48, 58, 62-3.]

[* ]See page 59 of the pamphlet [i.e., A Letter]. Without arguing this point with our author, we will, however, take note of an acknowledgment here made by him, which is of some importance. Although the boy couched by Cheselden could, according to Mr. Bailey, see distances, without any previous process of comparing his visual sensations with actual experience, Mr. Bailey admits that he still had to go through this very process of comparison before he could know that the distances which he saw corresponded with those he previously knew by touch. We do not wish to lay more stress upon this admission than belongs to it, but it seems to us very like arsurrenderr of the whole question. If the boy did not at once perceive whether the distances he saw were or were not the same with those he already knew, then we do not really see distances. If we saw distances, we should not need to learn by experience what distances we saw. We should at once recognise an object to be at the distance we saw it at; and should confidently expect that the indications of touch would correspond. This expectation might be ill-grounded, for we might see the distances incorrectly, but then the result would be error; not perplexity, and inability to judge at all, as was the case with Cheselden’s patient.

[nadheresn]59 adhered

[orepudiateso]59 repudiated

[rsurrenderr]43 surrendering