tions are objective realities. The sensation
of hardness (softness, be it observed, is only an inferior degree of
hardness, and therefore the latter word is the proper generic term to be
employed)--the sensation of hardness forms the contents of this sense.
Hardness, we will say, is originally a purely subjective affection. The
question, then, is, how can this affection, without being thrust forth
into a fictitious, transcendent, and incomprehensible universe, assume,
nevertheless, a distinct objective reality, and be (not as it were, but in
language of the most unequivocating truth) a permanent existence
altogether independent of the sense? We answer, that this can take place
only provided the sense of touch can be brought under our notice _as
itself hard_. If this can be shown to take place, then as all sensations
which are presented to us in space necessarily exclude one another, are
reciprocally _out_ of each other, all other instances of hardness must of
necessity fall as extrinsic to that particular hardness which the sense
reveals to us as its own; and, consequently, all these other instances of
hardness will start into being, as things endowed with a permanent and
independent substance.

Now, what is the verdict of experience on the subject? The direct and
unequivocal verdict of experience is, that the touch reveals itself to us
as one of its own sensations. In the finger-points more particularly, and
generally all over the surface of the body, the touch manifests itself not
only as that which apprehends hardness, but as that which is itself hard.
The sense of touch vested in one of its own sensations (our tangible
bodies namely) is the sense of touch brought within its own sphere. It
comes before itself as _one_ sensation of hardness. Consequently all its
_other_ sensations of hardness are necessarily excluded from this
particular hardness; and, falling beyond it, they are by the same
consequence built up into a world of objective reality, of permanent
substance, altogether independent of the sense, self-betrayed as a
sensation of hardness.

But here it may be asked, If the senses are thus reduced to the rank of
sensations, if they come under our observation as themselves sensations,
must we not regard them but as parts of the subjective sphere; and though
the other portions of the sphere may be extrinsic to these sensations,
still must not the contents of the sphere, taken as a whole, be considered
as entirel