An Introduction to Philosophy

by George Stuart Fullerton

"There is here a feeling, and a conclusion drawn from it, or some way suggested by it. In order to compare these, we must view them separately, and then consider by what tie they are connected, and wherein they resemble one another. The hardness of the table is the conclusion, the feeling is the medium by which we are led to that conclusion. Let a man attend distinctly to this medium, and to the conclusion, and he will perceive them to be as unlike as any two things in nature. The one is a sensation of the mind, which can have no existence but in a sentient being; nor can it exist one moment longer than it is felt; the other is in the table, and we conclude, without any difficulty, that it was in the table before it was felt, and continues after the feeling is over. The one implies no kind of extension, nor parts, nor cohesion; the other implies all these. Both, indeed, admit of degrees, and the feeling, beyond a certain degree, is a species of pain; but adamantine hardness does not imply the least pain.

"And as the feeling hath no similitude to hardness, so neither can our reason perceive the least tie or connection between them; nor will the logician ever be able to show a reason why we should conclude hardness from this feeling, rather than softness, or any other quality whatsoever. But, in reality, all mankind are led by their constitution to conclude hardness from this feeling."

It is well worth while to read this extract several times, and to ask oneself what Reid meant to say, and what he actually said. He is objecting, be it remembered, to the doctrine that the mind perceives immediately only its own ideas or sensations and must infer all else. His contention is that we perceive external things.

Does he say this? He says that we have feelings of touch from which we conclude that there is something external; that there is a feeling, "and a conclusion drawn from it, or some way suggested by it;" that "the hardness of the table is the conclusion, and the feeling is the medium by which we are led to the conclusion."

Could Descartes or Locke have more plainly supported the doctrine of representative perception? How could Reid imagine he was combatting that doctrine when he wrote thus? The point in which he differs from them is this: he maintains that we draw the conclusion in question without any reasoning, and, indeed, in the absence of any conceivable reason why we should draw it. We do it instinctively; we are led by the constitution of our nature.

In effect Reid says to us: When you lay your hand on the table, you have a sensation, it is true, but you also know the table is hard. How do you know it? I cannot tell you; you simply know it, and cannot help knowing it; and that is the end of the matter.

Reid's doctrine was not without its effect upon other philosophers. Among them we must place Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856), whose writings had no little influence upon British philosophy in the last half of the last century.

Hamilton complained that Reid did not succeed in being a very good Natural Realist, and that he slipped unconsciously into the position he was concerned to condemn. Sir William tried to eliminate this error, but the careful reader of his works will find to his amusement that this learned author gets his feet upon the same slippery descent. And much the same thing may be said of the doctrine of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who claims that, when we have a sensation, we know directly that there is an external thing, and then manages to sublimate that external thing into an Unknowable, which we not only do not know directly, but even do not know at all.

All of these men were anxious to avoid what they regarded as the perils of Idealism, and yet they seem quite unable to retain a foothold upon the position which they consider the safer one.

Reid called his doctrine the philosophy of "Common Sense," and he thought he was coming back from the subtleties of the metaphysicians to the standpoint of the plain man. That he should fall into difficulties and inconsistencies is by no means surprising. As we have seen (section 12), the thought of the plain man is far from clear. He certainly believes that we perceive an external world of things, and the inconsistent way in which Descartes and Locke appeal from ideas to the things themselves does not strike him as unnatural. Why should not a man test his ideas by turning to things and comparing the former with the latter? On the other hand, he knows that to perceive things we must have sense organs and sensations, and he cannot quarrel with the psychologists for saying that we know things only in so far as they are revealed to us through our sensations. How does he reconcile these two positions? He does not reconcile them. He accepts them as they stand.