But, in reality, the assertion that our ideas are transformed sensations, is erroneous as well as frivolous. For it conveys, and is intended to convey, the opinion that our sensations have one form which properly belongs to them; and that, in order to become ideas, they are converted into some other form. But the truth is, that our sensations, of themselves, without some act of the mind, such as involves what we have termed an Idea, have no form. We cannot see one object without the idea of space; we cannot see two without the idea of resemblance or difference; and space and difference are not sensations. Thus, if we are to employ the metaphor of Matter and Form, which is implied in the expression to which I have referred, our sensations, from their first reception, have their Form not _changed_, but _given_ by our Ideas. Without the relations of thought which we here term _Ideas_, the sensations are matter without form. Matter without form cannot exist: and in like manner sensations cannot become perceptions of objects, without some formative power of the mind. By the very act of being received as perceptions, they have a formative power exercised upon them, the operation of which might be expressed, by speaking of them, not as _transformed_, but simply as _formed_;--as invested with form, instead of being the mere formless material of perception. The word _inform_, according to its Latin etymology, at first implied this process by which matter is {41} invested with form. Thus Virgil[1\1] speaks of the thunderbolt as _informed_ by the hands of Brontes, and Steropes, and Pyracmon. And Dryden introduces the word in another place:-- Let others better mould the running mass Of metals, or _inform_ the breathing brass. Even in this use of the word, the form is something superior to the brute manner, and gives it a new significance and purpose. And hence the term is again used to denote the effect produced by an intelligent principle of a still higher kind:-- . . . . He _informed_ This ill-shaped body with a daring soul. And finally even the soul itself, in its original condition, is looked upon as matter, when viewed with reference to education and knowledge, by which it is afterwards moulded; and hence these are, in our language, termed _information_. If we confine ourselves to the first of these three uses of the term, we may correct the erroneous opinion of which we have just been speaking, and retain the metaphor by which it is expressed, by saying, that ideas are not _transformed_, but _informed_ sensations. [Note 1\1: Ferrum exercebant vasto Cyclopes in Antro Brontesque Steropesque et nudus membra Pyracmon; His informatum manibus, jam parte polita Fulmen erat.--_Æn._ viii. 424.] _Sect._ 9.--_Man the Interpreter of Nature._