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direct perceptive action of the mind is confined to the circle of its own activity, to consciousness; and probably no other answer would have been sought for, had not the conclusions drawn from this earlier statement led to a reconsideration of it. These conclusions have been idealism, and have compelled those who have wished to establish the independent existence of the external world, and have had no other means at hand to do it, to re-analyze perception, and find therein a valid objective element. Overlooking the inferences of the mind, they have given it a direct knowledge of matter.

The proof of idealism runs thus: 1. "We cannot know things in themselves; all knowledge is subjective; it is confined to unseen states and changes.

2. "If this is so, then still more is what we name the objective, only a state or change of us as subjective, it is a mere fiction of the mind so far as it is regarded as a beyond, or a thing in itself.

3. "Hence we do know the objective; for the skepticism can only legitimately conclude that the objective that we do know, is of a nature kindred to reason, and that by a priori necessity we can affirm that not only all knowable existence must have this nature, but also all possible existence must. Self-conscious intelligence must be, according to its very definition, subject and object in one, and thus universal."

Hamilton has striven to break this charmed circle of the mind at the point of perception, affirming that a real objective element is directly recognized therein. He says, "We have no reason whatever to doubt the report of consciousness, that we actually perceive at the external point of sensation and that we perceive the material reality." "The total and real object of perception is the external object under relation to our sense and faculty of cognition."