Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/181

RhPROP. V.———— primary and secondary qualities, the psychologist then addresses himself to its refutation, and to the restoration of the material world to the independency of which it appeared to have been so unlawfully deprived. He brings into play the distinction which we have been considering. He admits that some of the qualities of matter are reducible to mere sensations; but he denies that the whole of them admit of this resolution. No, says he, there is extension, there is figure, there is solidity. These qualities are refractory. They will not submit to be classed along with those more tractable companions of theirs, heat, cold, colour, &c, as the mere sensations of man. They refuse to be resolved into mere modifications of the human mind; and the attempt so to resolve them is to confound together phenomena which are essentially different They speak out plainly for themselves; they claim a manifest existence of their own. There is nothing occult about them. Unlike the secondary qualities, they declare their presence unequivocally. They stand forth and defy the idealist, with all his machinations, to explode them. Our sensations may perhaps not afford us any clear information in regard to the nature of material things, or even any sufficient evidence of their existence; but our perceptions of extension, figure, and solidity, place this truth in a clear light and on an indisputable footing; and, on the manifest existence of these