t
as we speak of a movement which is excited apart from, or contrary to,
our volition, as a reflex motion. Locality is no more in the pin than
pain is; of the former, as of the latter, it is true that "its being
is to be perceived," and that its existence apart from a thinking mind
is not conceivable.

The foregoing reasoning will be in no way affected, if, instead of
pricking the finger, the point of the pin rests gently against it, so
as to give rise merely to a tactile sensation. The tactile sensation
is referred outwards to the point touched, and seems to exist there.
But it is certain that it is not and cannot be there really, because
the brain is the sole seat of consciousness; and, further, because
evidence, as strong as that in favour of the sensation being in the
finger, can be brought forward in support of propositions which are
manifestly absurd.

For example, the hairs and nails are utterly devoid of sensibility,
as everyone knows. Nevertheless, if the ends of the nails or hairs
are touched, ever so lightly, we feel that they are touched, and the
sensation seems to be situated in the nails or hairs. Nay more, if a
walking-stick a yard long is held firmly by the handle and the other
end is touched, the tactile sensation, which is a state of our own
consciousness, is unhesitatingly referred to the end of the stick; and
yet no one will say that it _is_ there.

Let us now suppose that, instead of one pin's point resting against
the end of my finger, there are two. Each of these can be known to
me, as we have seen, only as a state of a thinking mind, referred
outwards, or localized. But the existence of these two states, somehow
or other, generates in my mind a host of new ideas, which did not make
their appearance when only one state was present.

For example, I get the ideas of co-existence, of number, of distance,
and of relative place or direction. But all these ideas are ideas of
relations, and imply the existence of something which perceives those
relations. If a tactile sensation is a state of the mind, and if
the localization of that sensation is an act of the mind, how is it
conceivable that a relation between two localized sensations should
exist apart from the mind? It is, I confess, quite as easy for me to
imagine that redness may exist apart from a visual sense, as it is to
suppose that co-existence, number, and distance can have any existence
apart from the mind of which they are ideas.

Thus