Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/385

Rh but so far is it from being true that they are all essentially implicated or incorporated with it, and cannot exist at a distance from it, that we have a direct proof to the contrary in our sensations of vision; and until the physiologist can prove (what has never yet been proven) an a priori necessity that our sensations must be where our bodies are, and an a priori absurdity in the contrary supposition, he must excuse us for resolutely standing by the fact as we find it.

This is a view which admits of much discussion, and we would gladly expatiate upon the subject, did time and space permit; but we must content ourselves with winding up the present observations with the accompanying diagram, which we think explains our view beyond the possibility of a mistake.

Let A be the original synthesis, or indiscrimination of vision and its sensations—of light and colours. Let á be the visual sensations locally associated by means of the touch with the tangible bodies C before vision is in any way associated with B—before, indeed, we have any knowledge of the existence of B. Then let a, the general condition on which the sensations, after a time, are found to depend, and in virtue of which they are apprehended, be locally associated with B—the eye discovered by means of the touch—and we have before us what we cannot help regarding as a complete rationale of the