Judge not (xar' OVIN) according to Sight. John vii. 24.

HEN I wrote the foregoing chapters, it was my intention to have taken no notice of Mr. Wefley's weak and puerile objections to the well eftablished doctrine of fenfible qualities: partly, becaufe what he obferves (or, rather, what he has picked up from Dr. Reid and others) on this fubject, is fo contemptibly frivolous, as hardly to justify any ferious animadverfion; and, partly, because I did not confider the fubject itself as directly connected with the article of neceffity.

But, on my reflecting, that the aptitude of perceivable bodies to imprefs our fenfes with certain motions, called fenfations; and that the fenfations fo produced, together with the correspondent ideas which thofe fenfations impart to, or excite in, the mind; are, all, the refult of neceffary relation, and form an indiffolubly combined chain of caufe and effect I determined to fubjoin fome enquiries, concerning a branch of knowledge, which, in this view of it, is not altogether foreign to the main argument of the preceding difquifitions.

By

By the fenfes, I mean thofe conduits or avenues to the brain, through which, the foul receives its ideas of objects. extraneous to its felf. No perfon need be reminded, that thefe fenfes are five, viz. thofe of feeling, hearing, feeing, finelling, and tafting. It may, perhaps, be folidly affirmed, that, in abfolute ftrictnefs, we have but one fenfe, precifely fo called, viz. that of feeling, or perception at large; of which the remaining four are but fo many exquifite modifications, or affections. I acquiefce, however, in the popular divifion of the fenfes into five.

The fenfible qualities of extraneous objects are, properly, no more than "powers," as Mr. Locke justly terms them, viz. powers of producing fuch particular motions in our animal organs, as have a native tendency to occafion correfpondent perceptions in the foul, through the mediation of the nerves and brain: that is to fay, extraneous objects have this effect, when duly prefented to the fenfes, and when the fenfes are in fuch a ftate as duly to receive the impreffions naturally arifing from the prefence, or application, of those objects.

Thefe powers, inherent in extraneous bodies, of producing fuch fenfations in us; indifputably refult from the figure, fize, arrangement, and motion, of the particles which conflitute the bodies themfelves. Which appears, among other confiderations, from hence that the fame body, under different modes of corpufcular fize, arrangement, motion, and figure, occafions different fenfations in our organs, and conveys different ideas to the mind.

Now, thefe modal differences of arrangement, &c. are undoubtedly refident in their refpective fubjects: and may eafily be conceived of, as exiftable, independently on us; i. e. they might be juft what they are, whether the bodies themfelves, in which they obtain, were objected to our fenfes, or not. But the effects of thofe combined modes (as colour, ound, flavour, fcent, pleasure, and pain) are things purely

purely relative; and abfolutely require the concurrence of fenfe, in order to their having any kind or degree of pofitive existence. They are but potentially in their peculiar fubjects, until thofe fubje&ts become objects, by being actually expofed to, and by actually operating upon, the organs of a percipient being.

Thus, there might have been tremulations in the atmosphere, through the impulfe of one mats of matter upon another (primarily fet in motion by the divine will), if no animal, or fentient being, had been created. But, in that cafe, it is utterly inconceivable, how thofe tremulations, though ever fo violent, could have occafioned what we call, found. Again. The difpofition of certain, furfaces to reflect, refract, and abforb, the incident rays of light; might have been juft what it now is, independently on the optic nerves of animals: but then no furface, however difpofed, i. e. be its texture, reflections, refractions, or abforptions, what they will; could have occafioned that ideal refult, which we term colour, without being oppofed to the vifual organ of an intelligent fubftance. And fo on, through every fpecies of fenfible quality.

Hence, there is nothing hyperbolic, or extravagant; but all is no less strictly and foberly philofophical, than fublimely and elegantly poctical; in the following lines of Dr. Young:

"The fenfes, which inherit earth and heavens,
Enjoy the various riches nature yields :
Far nobler! give the riches they enjoy.
Give tafte to fruits; and harmony to groves;
The radiant beams to gold, and gold's bright five:
Take in, at once, the landfcape of the world,
At a fmall inlet, which a grain might close,
And half-create the wond'rous world they fee.
But for the magic organ's pow'rful charmi,
Earth were a rude, uncolour'd chaos ftill.

Objects

Objects are but th' occafion: our's th' exploit.
Our's are the cloth, the pencil, and the paint,
Which nature's admirable picture draw,
And beautify creation's ample dome.

Like Milton's Eve, when gazing on the lake,
Man makes the matchlefs image, man admires."

This is provable, not only by reafon, but by numberless experiments. Do but artfully vary the medium through which you fee it, and you may make the furface of any body whatever affume, in appearance, any colour you pleafe: and that in the moft rapid fucceffion, and in every mode of poffible diverfity. A certain fign, that colour is only a fenfible quality, and not a real property, of matter.

But let us hear Mr. Wefley: who wildly thinks himfelf no lefs qualified to demolish the fundamental axioms of natural philofophy, than to overturn the first principles of natural and revealed religion.

"Colour," fays he, "is a real, material thing. There is no illufion in the cafe, unless you confound the * perception with the thing perceived. And all other fecondary qualities are just as real, as figure, or any other primary one." With regard to colour (for I have neither room nor leifure to run through all the other fecondary qualities), its non-existence is certain, not only from the preceding confiderations; but, likewife, in general, from the natural darkness of matter. Every atom (even those not excepted, which conftitute that exquifite fluid, called light; though it is the most attenuated and fubtil body with which we are acquainted) is, in

**The plain, natural meaning of this, is, that "the thing perceived," viz. colour, confidered as refident in bodies, is "real:" but that our 66 perception" of that "real" colour is a mere "illafion!"-Without any "illufion" at all, may we not pronounce Mr. Wesley to be the lameft, the blindeft, and the moft felf-contradictory wafter of ink and paper, that ever pretended to the name of reafoner? It is almoft a difgrace, to refute him.

trinfically,

trinfically, dark and, confequently, colourlefs. Light itfelf, by whofe intervention other bodies become vifible, feems to depend greatly, if not entirely, for that power, on the exility, the extreme rarefaction, and on the incomparably rapid motion, expanfion, and protrudibility, of its component particles by which properties, it is peculiarly fitted, to act upon the inftruments of animal fight; as thefe are likewife reciprocally fitted to admit that fenfation, which Providence defigned they fhould receive, in confequence of being fo acted upon.

"All colours," fays Mr. Wefley, "do as really exift without us, as trees, or corn, or heaven, or earth." He is welcome to enjoy a delufion, which (like most of his other opinions) has not one found argument for its fupport. But hear him again: "When I fay, that cloth is of a red colour; I mean, its furface is fo difpofed, as to reflect the red; i. e. the largeft, rays of light. When I fay, the fky is blue, I mean, it is fo difpofed, as to reflect the blue, i. e. the fmalleft, rays of light. And where is the delufion here? Does not that difpofition, do not thofe rays, as really exift, as either the cloth, or the fky? And are they not as really reflected, as the ball in a tennis-court ?"

What, in the name of wonder, could induce Mr. W. to make thefe conceffions? Conceffions, which cut the throat of his own hypothefis from ear to ear! For I appeal to any competent Reader, whether the following conclufions do not neceffarily flow from those premises?

1. That colour is the mere creature of fenfation: which fenfation is occafioned (not by any real tinge inherent, either in the object, or in the rays of light; but occafioned) by the " difpofition," i. e. by the texture, or configuration and connection, of the fuperficial particles; and by the "largenefs," or "fmallness," i. e. by the fize, of the "reflected rays." This is all very right, fo far as it goes.

2. That