of the whole; but without the understanding reacting on the senses, and informing the eye with judgment and knowledge, there would be no possibility whatever of comparing the different impressions received: no one part could have the slightest reference to any other part or to the whole; there would be no principle of cohesion left: we might have an infinite number of microscopic impressions and fractions of ideas, but there being nothing to unite them together, the most perfect grace and symmetry would be only one mass of unmeaning, unconscious confusion. All nature, all objects, all parts of all objects would be equally ‘without form and void.’ _The mind alone is formative_, to use the expression of a great German writer; or it is that alone which by its pervading and elastic energy unfolds and expands our ideas, that gives order and consistency to them, that assigns to every part its proper place, and fixes it there, and that frames the idea of the whole. Or, in other words, it is the understanding alone that perceives relation, but every object is made up of relation. In short, there is no object or idea which does not consist of a number of parts arranged in a certain manner, but of this arrangement the parts themselves cannot be sensible. To make each part conscious of its relation to the rest is to suppose an infinite number of intellects instead of one; and to say that a knowledge or perception of each part separately, without a reference to the rest, can produce a conception of the whole; that is, that a knowledge where no two impressions are or ever can be compared, can include a comparison between them and many others, is a contradiction and an absurdity.