rough any direct communication from the
senses. Not finding this idea of space where the analytical psychologist
had been searching for it, he drew it at once from the mind itself. He
described it as a product of the _subject_ man, a _form of the
sensibility_ with which he invests his own sensations.

We must first remark, that to this description of what perception really
is, there lies the same objection that may be urged against the account
of the sensationalist. A sensation clothed in space!--is this
intelligible? is it by any means an account of the matter? To invest
sensation with space, is it not as if we spoke of a _pleasure_ that was
_square_, or of a _circular pain_?

So far, however, as this internal origin of the idea of space is
concerned, the statement of Kant, though expressed in unusual terms, is
not opposed to the general belief of mankind, or to our irresistible
convictions. It may merely convey this meaning, that the mind has an
immediate knowledge (drawn from the laws of its own cogitation) of
space, or extension. But then, according to the universal and
unalterable convictions of mankind, this idea of space, though it may be
derived from the innate resources of the mind, is in fact the knowledge
of an external reality--of an _objective_ truth. Kant decided otherwise.
He pronounced this _form of the sensibility_ to be merely and only a
mode of thought--that space had, in fact, no other existence, was solely
a _subjective_ truth.

This one decision has been the cause of, or at least has served as the
starting-point for a series of the wildest speculations that perhaps
philosophy has to record. And this decision, how arbitrary!--how
dogmatic!

It must be manifest, we think, to every intelligent person, that,
granting we cannot demonstrate the _objective truth_ of the existence of
space, it is equally impossible to prove its _subjective_ nature. We
cannot conceive of space but as existing really around us. The
metaphysician says we may be deceived. This universal and irresistible
conviction--this fundamental law of human belief, may not be
correspondent with absolute truth, may not be trustworthy. Granted that
we _may_ be deceived, that there is footing here for his _scepticism_,
he cannot proceed a step further, and show that we _are_ deceived. When,
in his turn, he would assert, or dogmatise, he at all events is as open
to our scepticism as we were to his. If a fundamental belief of this
kind is