transcendent, and incomprehensible universe, assume, nevertheless, a distinct objective reality, and be (not as it were, but in language of the most unequivocating truth) a permanent existence altogether independent of the sense?  We answer, that this can take place only provided the sense of touch can be brought under our notice as itself hard.  If this can be shown to take place, then as all sensations which are presented to us in space necessarily exclude one another, are reciprocally out of each other, all other instances of hardness must of necessity fall as extrinsic to that particular hardness which the sense reveals to us as its own; and, consequently, all these other instances of hardness will start into being, as things endowed with a permanent and independent substance.

Now, what is the verdict of experience on the subject?  The direct and unequivocal verdict of experience is, that the touch reveals itself to us as one of its own sensations.  In the finger-points more particularly, and generally all over the surface of the body, the touch manifests itself not only as that which apprehends hardness, but as that which is itself hard.  The sense of touch vested in one of its own sensations (our tangible bodies namely) is the sense of touch brought within its own sphere.  It comes before itself as one sensation of hardness.  Consequently all its other sensations of hardness are necessarily excluded from this particular hardness; and, falling beyond it, they are by the same consequence built up into a world of objective reality, of permanent substance, altogether independent of the sense, self-betrayed as a sensation of hardness.

But here it may be asked, If the senses are thus reduced to the rank of sensations, if they come under our observation as themselves sensations, must we not regard them but as parts of the subjective sphere; and though the other portions of the sphere may be extrinsic to these sensations, still must not the contents of the sphere, taken as a whole, be considered as entirely subjective, i.e. as merely ours, and consequently must not real objective existence be still as far beyond our grasp as ever?  We answer.  No, by no means.  Such a query implies a total oversight of all that experience proves to be the fact with regard to this matter.  It implies that the senses have not been reduced to the rank of sensations—­that they have not been brought under our cognizance as themselves sensations, and that they have yet to be brought there.  It implies that vision has not been revealed to us as a sensation of colour in the phenomenon the eye—­and that touch has not been revealed to us as a sensation of hardness in the phenomenon the finger.  It implies, in short, that it is not the sense itself which has been revealed to us, in the one case as coloured, and in the other case as hard, but that it is something else which has been thus revealed to us.  But it may still be asked, How do we know that we are not deceiving ourselves?  How can it be proved that it is the senses, and not something else, which have come before us under the guise of certain sensations?  That these sensations are the senses themselves, and nothing but the senses, may be proved in the following manner.