The Scottish Philosophy [125]
such topics as color, visible figure, extension, the parallel motion of the eyes, squinting, and Berkeley's theory of vision. He treats them physiologically, so far as physiology could then carry him; but he treats them also, which so many later German and British psychologists do not, in the light of the revelations of consciousness. He takes up the same subject in the earlier parts of his " Essays."
" All philosophers, from Plato to Hume, agree in this that we do not perceive external objects immediately, and that the immediate object of perception must be some image present to the mind." He shows that no solid proof has been advanced of the existence of the ideas; that they are a mere fiction and hypothesis, contrived to solve the phenomena of the human understanding; that they do not at all answer this end; and that this hypothesis of ideas or images of things, in the mind or in the sensorium, is the parent of foolish paradoxes.
Let us try to determine precisely his doctrine as to perception by the senses. Negatively: he denies, first, that we perceive by means of ideas, in the mind or out of it, coming between the mind and the material object perceived; secondly, that we {209} reach a knowledge of the external object by means of reasoning; and, thirdly, that, in order to the conception of any thing it is necessary to have some impression or idea in our minds which resembles it, particularly setting himself against the doctrine of Locke, that Our ideas of the primary qualities are resemblances of them. What he advances on these points seems to me clear, full, and satisfactory. He has done special service to philosophy by removing these confusing and trouble some intermediaries which were called. It may be that the great body of philosophers had not drawn out for their own use such a doctrine of ideas as Reid exposes; it may be that some of them, if the question had been put to them, would have denied that they held any such doctrine; it may be, as Hamilton has tried to show, that some few held a doctrine of perception without ideas: but I believe that Reid was right in holding that mental philosophers generally did bring in an idea between the mind perceiving and the external object; that some objectified the internal thought, and confounded it with the object perceived that others created an image in the mind or in the brain and that some had not clearly settled what they meant by the term they employed. I believe he is right when he says generally, that " ideas being supposed to be a shadowy kind of beings, intermediate between the thought and the object of thought, sometimes seem to coalesce with the thought, sometimes with the object of thought, and sometimes to have a distinct existence of their own." I am sure that the discussion in which he engaged has been of great utility in compelling those philosophers who still use the word "idea" to tell us what they mean by it, and of still greater utility in leading so many to abandon the use of the phrase altogether in strictly philosophic investigations.
I am not to enter deeply into the interminable discussions as to the sense in which the word "idea" has been used by Descartes and Locke. Hamilton says that by the phrase Descartes " designated two very different things; viz., the proximate bodily antecedent and the mental consequence." ("Works," p. 273.) As to the meaning which Locke attached to the term, I must content myself with referring to the discussions of Stewart, Brown, and Hamilton. After reading these with care, I am convinced that the following observations of Reid are as just as {210} they are important: " Perhaps it was unfortunate for Mr. Locke that he used the word idea so very frequently as to make it very difficult to give the attention necessary to put it always to the same meaning. And it appears evident that, in many places, be means nothing more by it but the notion or conception we have of any object of thought; that is, the act of the mind in conceiving it, and not the object conceived." But then he frequently
" All philosophers, from Plato to Hume, agree in this that we do not perceive external objects immediately, and that the immediate object of perception must be some image present to the mind." He shows that no solid proof has been advanced of the existence of the ideas; that they are a mere fiction and hypothesis, contrived to solve the phenomena of the human understanding; that they do not at all answer this end; and that this hypothesis of ideas or images of things, in the mind or in the sensorium, is the parent of foolish paradoxes.
Let us try to determine precisely his doctrine as to perception by the senses. Negatively: he denies, first, that we perceive by means of ideas, in the mind or out of it, coming between the mind and the material object perceived; secondly, that we {209} reach a knowledge of the external object by means of reasoning; and, thirdly, that, in order to the conception of any thing it is necessary to have some impression or idea in our minds which resembles it, particularly setting himself against the doctrine of Locke, that Our ideas of the primary qualities are resemblances of them. What he advances on these points seems to me clear, full, and satisfactory. He has done special service to philosophy by removing these confusing and trouble some intermediaries which were called
I am not to enter deeply into the interminable discussions as to the sense in which the word "idea" has been used by Descartes and Locke. Hamilton says that by the phrase Descartes " designated two very different things; viz., the proximate bodily antecedent and the mental consequence." ("Works," p. 273.) As to the meaning which Locke attached to the term, I must content myself with referring to the discussions of Stewart, Brown, and Hamilton. After reading these with care, I am convinced that the following observations of Reid are as just as {210} they are important: " Perhaps it was unfortunate for Mr. Locke that he used the word idea so very frequently as to make it very difficult to give the attention necessary to put it always to the same meaning. And it appears evident that, in many places, be means nothing more by it but the notion or conception we have of any object of thought; that is, the act of the mind in conceiving it, and not the object conceived." But then he frequently