complete a representative of the nominalists and
conceptualists--an intellectual descendant of Roscellinus and of
Abelard. And by a curious irony of fate, it is the nominalist who is,
this time, the champion of orthodoxy, and the realist that of heresy.

Once more let us try to work out Berkeley's principles for ourselves,
and inquire what foundation there is for the assertion that extension,
form, solidity, and the other "primary qualities," have an existence
apart from mind. And for this purpose let us recur to our experiment
with the pin.

It has been seen that when the finger is pricked with a pin, a state
of consciousness arises which we call pain; and it is admitted that
this pain is not a something which inheres in the pin, but a something
which exists only in the mind, and has no similitude elsewhere.

But a little attention will show that this state of consciousness is
accompanied by another, which can by no effort be got rid of. I not
only have the feeling, but the feeling is localized. I am just as
certain that the pain is in my finger, as I am that I have it at all.
Nor will any effort of the imagination enable me to believe that the
pain is not in my finger.

And yet nothing is more certain than that it is not, and cannot be, in
the spot in which I feel it, nor within a couple of feet of that spot.
For the skin of the finger is connected by a bundle of fine nervous
fibres, which run up the whole length of the arm, with the spinal
marrow and brain, and we know that the feeling of pain caused by the
prick of a pin is dependent on the integrity of those fibres. After
they have been cut through close to the spinal cord, no pain will be
felt, whatever injury is done to the finger; and if the ends which
remain in connection with the cord be pricked, the pain which arises
will appear to have its seat in the finger just as distinctly as
before. Nay, if the whole arm be cut off, the pain which arises from
pricking the nerve stump will appear to be seated in the fingers, just
as if they were still connected with the body.

It is perfectly obvious, therefore, that the localization of the
pain at the surface of the body is an act of the mind. It is an
_extradition_ of that consciousness, which has its seat in the
brain, to a definite point of the body--which takes place without our
volition, and may give rise to ideas which are contrary to fact. We
might call this extradition of consciousness a reflex feeling, jus