received from God himself, assure us that the latter of them is the truth. The latter is by far the simpler, as well as by far the sublimer doctrine. But it is not on the authority either of its simplicity or its sublimity, that we venture to propound it--it is on account of its perfect consonance, both with the primitive convictions of our unsophisticated common sense, and with the more delicate and complex evidence of our speculative reason. When a man consults his own nature, in an impartial spirit, he inevitably finds that his genuine belief in the existence of matter is not a belief in the independent existence of matter _per se_--but is a belief in the independent existence of the perception of matter which he is for the time participating in. The very last thing which he naturally believes in, is, that the perception is a state of his own mind, and that the matter is something different from it, and exists apart _in natura rerum_. He they _say_ that he believes this, but he never does really believe it. At any rate, he believes in the _first_ place that they exist _together_, wherever they exist. The perception which a man has of a sheet of paper, does not come before him as something distinct from the sheet of paper itself. The two are identical: they are indivisible: they are not two, but one. The only question then is, whether the perception of a sheet of paper (taken as it must be in its indissoluble totality) is a state of the man's own mind--or is no such state. And, in settlement of this question, there cannot be a doubt that he believes in the _second_ place, that the perception of a sheet of paper is not a modification of his own mind, but is an objective thing which exists altogether independent of him, and one which would still exist, although he, and all other created beings were annihilated. All that he believes to be his (or subjective) is _his participation in_ the perception of this object. In a word, it is the perception of matter, and not matter _per se_, which is the _kind_ of matter, in the independent and permanent existence of which man rests and reposes his belief. There is no truth or satisfaction to be found in any other doctrine. This metaphysical theory of perception is a doctrine of pure intuitionism: it steers clear of all the perplexities of representationism; for it gives us in perception only one--that is, only a proximate object: this object is the perception of matter,--and this is one indivisible object. It is not, and cannot be, split into a proximate and a remote object. The doctrine, therefore, is proof against all the cavils of scepticism. We may add, that the entire objectivity of this _datum_ (which the metaphysical doctrine proclaims) makes it proof against the imputation of idealism,--at least of every species of absurd or objectionable idealism.