There are two very good reasons, then, why we cannot believe in the existence of matter at all, if we accept as our starting point the psychological analysis. This analysis gives us, for matter, matter _per se_. But matter _per se_ cannot be believed in; 1st, because the condition on which the belief depends cannot be complied with; and, 2dly, because the matter which we _already_ believe in is something quite different from matter _per se_. In trying to believe in the existence of matter _per se_, we always find that we are believing in the existence of _something else_, namely, in the existence of matter _cum perceptione_. But it is not to the psychological analysis that we are indebted for this matter, which is something else than matter _per se_. The psychological analysis does its best to annihilate it. It gives us nothing but matter _per se_,--a thing which neither is nor can be believed in. We are thus prevented from believing in the existence of _any_ kind of matter. In a word, the psychological analysis of the perception of matter necessarily converts who embrace it into sceptics or idealists. In this predicament what shall we do? Shall we abandon the analysis as a treacherous principle, or shall we, with Dr Reid, make one more stand in its defence? In order that the analysis may have fair play we shall give it another chance, by quoting Mr Stewart's exposition of Reid's doctrine, which must be regarded as a perfectly faithful representation:--"Dr Reid," says Mr Stewart, "was the first person who had courage to lay completely aside all the common _hypothetical_ language concerning perception, and to exhibit _the difficulty_, in all its magnitude, by a plain _statement of the fact_. To what, then, it may be asked, does this statement amount? Merely to this; that the mind is so formed that certain impressions produced on our organs of sense, by external objects, are _followed_ by corresponding sensations, and that these sensations, (which have no more resemblance to the qualities of matter, than the words of a language have to the things they denote,) are _followed_ by a perception of the existence and qualities of the bodies by which the impressions are made;--that all the steps of this process are equally incomprehensible."[25] There are at least two points which are well worthy of being attended to in this quotation. _First_, Mr Stewart says that Reid "exhibited the difficulty of the problem of perception, in all its magnitude, by a plain statement of fact." What does that mean? It means this; that Reid stated, indeed, the fact correctly--namely, _that_ external objects give rise to sensations and perceptions, but that still his statement did not penetrate to the heart of the business, but by his own admission, left the difficulty undiminished. What difficulty? The difficulty as to _how_ external objects give rise to sensations and perceptions. Reid did not undertake to settle that point--a wise declinature, in the estimation of Mr