ght it
fitting to nix up the debate on differential duties in favour of the
colonies with the other objects which have engaged our labour. We are as
little disposed as any free trader to view differential duties in excess,
with favour and approval. The candid admission of Mr Deacon Hume on that
head, that in reference to the late Slave colonies the question of those
duties is "taken entirely out of the category of free trade," should set
that debate at rest for the present, at all events.

* * * * *

A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES.

How can that which is a purely subjective affection--in other words, which
is dependent upon us as a mere modification of our sentient
nature--acquire, nevertheless, such a distinct objective reality, as shall
compel us to acknowledge it as an independent creation, the permanent
existence of which, is beyond the control of all that we can either do or
think? Such is the form to which all the questions of speculation my be
ultimately reduced. And all the solutions which have hitherto been
propounded as answers to the problem, may be generalized into these two:
either consciousness is able to transcend, or go beyond itself; or else
the whole pomp, and pageantry, and magnificence, which we miscall the
external universe, are nothing but our mental phantasmagoria, nothing but
states of our poor, finite, subjective selves.

But it has been asked again and again, in reference to these two solutions,
can a man overstep the limits of himself--of his own consciousness? If he
can, then says the querist, the reality of the external world is indeed
guaranteed; but what an insoluble, inextricable contradiction is here:
that a man should overstep the limits of the very nature which is _his_,
just because he cannot overstep it! And if he cannot, then says the same
querist, then is the external universe an empty name--a mere unmeaning
sound; and our most inveterate convictions are all dissipated like dreams.

Astute reasoner! the dilemma is very just, and is very formidable; and
upon the one or other of its horns, has been transfixed every adventurer
that has hitherto gone forth on the knight-errantry of speculation. Every
man who lays claim to a direct knowledge of something different from
himself, perishes impaled on the contradiction involved in the assumption,
that consciousness can transcend itself: and every man who disclaims such
knowledge, expires in the vacuum