ch in our eyes the multitudinous impulses which are
reflected from its surface under circumstances somewhat similar to
those in which a cricketer "fields" a ball; he puts his hand in the
way of the moving ball and catches it, and, knowing the distance of
the batsman, he perhaps recognises, by the hard impact of the ball,
that the batsman has strong muscles, but he cannot be said to _see_
the batsman by that impact, nor can he gain thereby any idea as to his
character. So it is with objective intuition; we direct our eyes
towards an object, and catch thereby rays of light reflected from that
object at different angles, and, by combining all these directions, we
recognise _form_, and come to the conclusion that we are looking at,
say, a chair. The eye also tells us that rays are coming in greater
quantity from some parts of it, and we know that those parts are
_polished_; the eye again catches rays giving higher or lower
frequencies of vibration, and we call that _colour_; our eyes also
tell us that it intercepts certain rays reflected from other objects
in the room, and we know that it is not _transparent_ to light; and
those are our sight perceptions of a wooden chair.

We may go a little further by "pushing," when we know, by the amount
of resistance compared with the power exerted, what force of gravity
is being exerted by and on that chair, and we declare it heavy or
light, but by these means we get no nearer to the knowledge of what
matter is. By tests and reagents we can resolve wood into other forms
which we call Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, &c., which, because
we cannot divide them into any other known substances, we call
"Elements," but we can only look at these in the same way as we are
looking at the chair. Chemists, however, carry us a little further,
and show us that the Elementary substances have not only their likes
and dislikes, but their passionate desires and lukewarmness to others
of their ilk, and, when opportunity offers, they break up with great
violence any ordinary friendship existing between them and their
neighbours, and seize on their coveted prey with a strength of will
surpassing anything experienced in the Organic World; and this new
association they maintain, until they, in their turn, are
dispossessed, or they encounter another substance of still greater
attraction, when they leave their first love and take up new
connections.

I shall touch upon the subject of what matter is late