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ferred myself to the Russian service, with the view of gaining some appointment on the Polish frontier which might put it in my power to execute my vow of destroying all the magistrates of your city. War, however, raged, and carried me into far other regions. It ceased, and there was little prospect that another generation would see it relighted; for the disturber of peace was a prisoner for ever, and all nations were exhausted. Now, then, it became necessary that I should adopt some new mode for executing my vengeance; and the more so, because annually some were dying of those whom it was my mission to punish. A voice ascended to me, day and night, from the graves of my father and mother, calling for vengeance before it should be too late. I took my measures thus:-Many Jews were present at Waterloo. From amongst these, all irritated against Napoleon for the expectations he had raised, only to disappoint, by his great assembly of Jews at Paris, I selected eight, whom I knew familiarly as men hardened by military experience against the movements of pity. With these as my beagles, I hunted for some time in your forest before opening my regular campaign; and I am surprised that you did not hear of the death which met the executioner, him I mean who dared to lift his hand against my mother. This man I met by accident in the forest; and I slew him. talked with the wretch as a stranger at first upon the memorable case of the Jewish lady. Had he relented, had he expressed compunction, I might have relented. But far otherwise the dog, not dreaming to whom he spoke, exulted; he- But why repeat the villain's words? I cut him to pieces. Next I did this: my agents I caused to matriculate separately at the college. They assumed the college dress. And now mark the solution of that mystery which caused such perplexity. Simply as students we all had an unsuspected admission at any house. Just then there was a common practice, as you will remember, amongst the younger students, of going out a-masking, that is, of entering houses in the academic dress and with the face masked. This prac. tice subsisted even during the most intense alarm from the murderers; for the dress of the students was supposed to bring protection along with it. But

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even after suspicion had connected itself with this dress, it was sufficient that I should appear unmasked at the head of the maskers, to insure them a friendly reception. Hence the facility with which death was inflicted, and that unaccountable absence of any motion towards an alarm. I took hold of my victim, and he looked at me with smiling security. Our weapons were hid under our academic robes; and even when we drew them out, and at the moment of applying them to the throat, they still supposed our gestures to be part of the pantomime we were performing. Did I relish this abuse of personal confidence in myself? No-I loathed it, and I grieved for its necessity; but my mother, a phantom not seen with bodily eyes, but ever present to my mind, continually ascended before me; and still I shouted aloud to my astounded victim,

This comes from the Jewess! Hound of hounds! Do you remember the Jewess whom you dishonoured, and the oaths which you broke in order that you might dishonour her, and the righteous law which you violated, and the cry of anguish from her son, which you scoffed at ?' Who I was, what I avenged, and whom, I made every man aware, and every woman, before I punished them. The details of the cases I need not repeat. One or two I was obliged, at the beginning, to commit to my Jews. The suspicion was thus, from the first, turned aside by the notoriety of my presence elsewhere; but I took care that none suffered who had not either been upon the guilty list of magistrates who condemned the mother, or of those who turned away with mockery from the supplication of the son.

"It pleased God; however, to place a mighty temptation in my path, which might have persuaded me to forego all thoughts of vengeance, to forget my vow, to forget the voices which invoked me from the grave. This was Margaret Liebenheim. Ah! how terrific appeared my duty of bloody retribution, after her angel's face and angel's voice had calmed me. With respect to her grandfather, strange it is to mention, that never did my innocent wife appear so lovely as precisely in the relation of grand-daughter. So beautiful was her goodness to the old man, and so divine was the childlike innocence on her part, contrasted with the guilty recollections associated with

him for he was amongst the guiltiest towards my mother-still I delayed his punishment to the last; and, for his child's sake, I would have pardoned him-nay, I had resolved to do so, when a fierce Jew, who had a deep malignity towards this man, swore that he would accomplish his vengeance at all events, and perhaps might be obliged to include Margaret in the ruin, unless I adhered to the original scheme. Then I yielded; for circumstances armed this man with momentary pow. er. But the night fixed on was one in which I had reason to know that my wife would be absent; for so I had myself arranged with her, and the unhappy counter-arrangement I do not yet understand. Let me add, that the sole purpose of my clandestine marriage was to sting her grandfather's mind with the belief that his family had been dishonoured, even as he had dishonoured mine. He learned, as I took care that he should, that his grand-daughter carried about with her the promises of a mother, and did not know that she had the sanction of a wife. This discovery made him, in one day, become eager for the marriage he had previously opposed; and this discovery also embittered the misery of his death. At that moment I attempted to think only of my mother's wrongs; but in spite of all I could do, this old man appeared to me in the light of Margaret's grandfather; and, had I been left to myself, he would have been saved. As it was, never was horror equal to mine when I met her flying to his succour. I had relied upon her absence; and the misery of that moment, when her eye fell upon me in the very act of seizing her grandfather, far transcended all else that I have suffered in these terrific scenes. She fainted in my arms, and I and another carried her up-stairs and procured water; mean-time her grandfather had been murdered even whilst Margaret fainted. I had, however, under the fear of discovery, though never anticipating a rencontre with herself, forestalled the explanation requisite in such a case, to make my conduct intelligible. I had told her, under feigned names, the story of my mother and my sisters. She knew their wrongs; she had heard me contend for the right of vengeance.

Consequently, in our parting interview, one word only was required to place myself in a new position to her thoughts. I needed only to say I was that son; that unhappy mother, so miserably degraded and outraged, was mine.

"As to the jailer, he was met by a party of us. Not suspecting that any of us could be connected with the family, he was led to talk of the most hideous details with regard to my poor Berenice. The child had not, as had been insinuated, aided her own degra dation, but had nobly sustained the dignity of her sex and her family. Such advantages as the monster pretended to have gained over her-sick, deso. late, and latterly delirious-were, by his own confession, not obtained without violence. This was too much. Forty thousand lives, had he possessed them, could not have gratified my thirst for revenge. Yet, had he but showed courage, he should have died the death of a soldier. But the wretch showed cowardice the most abject, andbut you know his fate.

"Now, then, all is finished, and human nature is avenged. Yet, if you complain of the bloodshed and the terror, think of the wrongs which created my rights; think of the sacrifice by which I gave a tenfold strength to those rights; think of the necessity for a dreadful concussion, and shock to society, in order to carry my lesson into the councils of princes.

"This will now have been effected. And ye, victims of dishonour, will be glorified in your deaths; ye will not have suffered in vain, nor died without a monument. Sleep, therefore, sister Berenice,-sleep, gentle Mariamne, in peace. And thou, noble mother, let the outrages sown in thy dishonour rise again and blossom in wide harvests of honour for the women of thy afflicted race. Sleep, daughters of Jerusalem, in the sanctity of your sufferings. And thou, if it be possible, even more beloved daughter of a Christian fold, whose company was too soon denied to him in life, open thy grave to receive him, who, in the hour of death, wishes to remember no title which he wore on earth but that of thy chosen and adoring lover,

"MAXIMILIAN."

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
PART IV. CHAPTER I.

To enter at length into a discussion concerning the multifarious theories that have been propounded respecting the fact of perception, would be an endless and unnecessary labour. But, as the problem we are about to be engaged with has much in common with these speculations, and as its solution has been retarded by the assumption of various false facts which have invariably been permitted to mingle with them, we must, in a few words, strike at the root of these spurious facts, and, employing a more accurate observation, we will then bring forward, purified from all irrelevant admixture, that great question of psychology-how, or in what circumstances does Consciousness come into operation?

"Perception," says Dr Brown, "is a state of mind which is induced directly or indirectly by its external cause, as any other feeling is induced by its particular antecedent. If the external cause or object be absent, the consequent feeling, direct or indirect, which we term perception, will not be induced, precisely as any other feeling will not arise without its peculiar antecedent. The relation of cause and effect, in short, is exactly the same in perception as in all the other mental phenomena-a relation of invariable sequence of one change after another change.'

This doctrine, which explains the phenomena of perception by placing them under the law of causality, is maintained, we believe, in one form or another, by every philosopher who has theorised on the subject, † from

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Aristotle, down through his scholastic followers, past the occasionalists and pre-established harmonists, and onwards to Dr Brown, who is merely to be considered as one of its most expli. cit expounders. One and all of them assume that the great law of cause and effect is as little violated in the intercourse which takes place between the external universe and man, as it is in the catenation of the objects themselves constituting that universe. Have we, then, any fault to find with this doctrine, supported as it is by such a host of authorities; and if we have, what is it? We answer that, in our apprehension, it places Dr Brown and all the philosophers who embrace it in a very extraordinary dilemma, which we now proceed to point out.

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If by perception," Dr Brown understands "sensation," and nothing more than sensation, then we admit his statement of the fact to be correct, and his doctrine to be without a flaw. Sensation (the smell of a rose, for example) is certainly "a state" which is "induced by its external cause," namely, by the rose. This is certainly a simple and ordinary instance of sequence,-a mere illustration of the common law of cause and effect, and not a whit more extraordinary than any other exemplification of that great law. We admit, then, that here the phenomenon is correctly observed and stated, that the law of causality embraces sensation, and adequately ac counts for its origin. Where, then, does our objection lie? It lies in this, that the origin of sensation is not the true and pertinent problem requiring

We are aware that Dr Brown and others have endeavoured to teach the doctrine of causation as a simple relation of antecedence and consequence, emptying our notion of cause of the idea of cfficiency, that is, of the element which constitutes its very essence. But, unlike Hume, who adopted the same views, and never swerved from them, but carried them forth into all their consequences, they never remain consistent with themselves for ten consecutive pages. They keep constantly resuming the idea they profess to have abjured; as, for instance, in their admission with respect to the efficiency or power of the Divine will. Therefore, their doctrine, whatever it may be, does not in any degree affect the line of argument followed out in the text, addressed though that argument is to those who entertain the common notion of causation, as, no doubt, Dr Brown himself in reality did, however different a one he may have professed.

solution, but is a most frivolous and irrelevant question. We thus, then, fix for Dr Brown and many other philosophers the first horn of our dilemma. If by "perception" they understand" sensation" merely, they no doubt hit the true facts and their true explanation, but then they entire. ly miss, as we shall see, the question properly at issue, and, instead of grappling with it, they explain to us that which stands in need of no explanation.

But by "perception," Dr Brown and other philosophers probably understand something more than "sensa. tion." If so, what is the additional fact they understand by it? When we have found it, we will then fix for them the other horn of our dilemma.

When animals and young children are sentient, there is in them, as we have all along seen, nothing more than sensation. The state of being into which they are cast is simple and single. It is merely a certain effect following a certain cause. There is in it nothing whatsoever of a reflex character. A particular sensation is, in their case, given or induced by its particular external cause, and nothing more is given. Indeed, what more could we rationally expect the fragrant particles of a rose to give than the sensation of the smell of a rose? Here, then, the state into which the sentient creature is thrown begins, continues, and ends, in simple unmixed sensation, and that is all that can be said about it.

But when we ourselves are sentient, we find the state of the fact to be widely different from this. We find that our sentient condition is not, as is the case in children and animals, a monopoly of sensation, but that here a new fact is evolved, over and above the sensation which makes the phenomenon a much more complicated and extraordinary one. This new and anomalous phenomenon which accompanies our sensations, but which is, at the same time, completely distinct from them is the fact of our own personality-the fact and the notion denoted by the word " I." Surely no one will maintain that this realisation of self, in conjunction with our sensations, and as distinguished from the objects causing them, is the same fact as these sensations themselves. In man, then, there is the notion and the reality of himself,

as well as the sensation that passes through him. In other words, he is not only sentient, like other animals, but, unlike them, he is sentient with a consciousness, or reference to self, of sensation ;-two very different, and, as we have already seen, and shall see still further, mutually repugnant and antithetical states of existence.

This consciousness of sensation, then, is the other fact contained in perception; and it is an enquiry into the nature and origin of this fact, and of it alone, that forms the true and proper problem of psychology when we are busied with the phenomena of perception; because it is this fact, and not the fact of sensation, which constitutes man's peculiar and distinctive characteristic, and lies as the foundation-stone of all the grander structures of his moral and intellectual being.

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We now then ask :-Have Dr Brown and other philosophers entertained the problem as to the origin and import of this fact-the fact, namely, of consciousness, as distinguished from the fact of sensation, passion, &c.and have they thus grappled with the true question at issue? We answer: That if they have, then have they grossly falsified the facts of the case. For it is not the fuct, that the consciousness of sensation is "induced, either directly or indirectly, by its external cause,' or by any cause whatsoever. Sensation, no doubt, is induced by its external cause, but consciousness is altogether exempt from the law of causality, as we shall very shortly prove by a reference to experience itself. In fine, then, the dilemma to' which Dr Brown, and, we believe, all other theorists on the subject of perception may be reduced, stands thus: Are they, primo loco, right in their facts?-then they are wrong in the question they take up. Or, secundo loco, do they hit the right question ?— then they falsify, ab initio, the facts upon which its solution depends. In other words, in so far as their statement of facts is true, they take up a wrong question, inasmuch as they explain to us the origin of our sensations when they ought to be explaining to us the origin of our consciousness of sensations, or the notion of self which accompanies them. Or, again, supposing that they take up the right question; then their statement of facts is false, inasmuch as their assumption

that our consciousness of sensation falls under the law of causality is totally unfounded, and may be disproved by an appeal to a stricter and more accurate observation.

The erection of this dilemma places us on a vantage ground from which we may perceive at a glance both what we ought to avoid and what we ought to follow. On the one hand, realising the true facts, we can avoid the fate of those who expended their labour on a wrong question; and, on the other hand, hitting the right question, we can also avoid the fate of those who wrecked its solution upon false facts.

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We can now steer equally clear of the Scylla of an irrelevant problem, and the Charybdis of fictitious facts. Perception is, as we have seen, a synthesis of two facts, sensation, namely, and consciousness, or the realisation of self in conjunction with the sensation experienced. The former of these is possessed in common by men and by animals; but the latter is peculiar to man and constitutes his differential quality, and is, therefore, the sole and proper fact to which our attention ought to direct itself when contemplating the phenomena of perception.

CHAPTER II.

We have already had occasion to establish and illustrate the radical distinction between consciousness, on the one hand, and sensation on the other, or any other of those "states of mind," as they are called, of which we are cognisant. We showed that consciousness is not only distinct from any of these states, but is diametrically opposed, or placed in a direct antithesis to them all. Thus, taking for an example, as we have hitherto done, the smell of a rose, it appears that so long as the sensation occasioned by this object remains moderate, consciousness, or the realisation of self in union with the feeling, comes into play without any violent effort. But, suppose the sensation is increased, until we almost

"die of a rose, in aromatic pain," then we affirm that the natural ten dency of this augmentation is to weak en or obliterate consciousness, which, at any rate, cannot now maintain its place without a much stronger exertion. We do not say that this loss of selfpossession, or possession of self, always happens even when human sensations are most immoderate; but we affirm that in such circumstances there is a natural tendency in man to lose his consciousness or to have it weakened; and that when he retains it, he does so by the counteracting exercise of an unnatural, that is, of a free and moral power; and we further maintain that this tendency, or law, or fact of hu

manity, which is fully brought to light when our sensations, emotions, &c., are rendered very violent, clearly proves that there is at bottom a vital and ceaseless repugnancy between consciousness and all these "states of mind," even in their ordinary and more moderate degrees of manifestation, although the equipoise then preserved on both sides may render it difficult for us to observe it. Had man been visited by much keener sensations, and hurried along by much stronger passions, and endowed with a much more perfect reason, the realisation of his own personality, together with the consequences it involves, would then have been a matter of much greater difficulty to him than it now is; perhaps it would have amounted to an impossibility. Even as it is, nothing can be more wonderful than that he should evolve this antagonist power in the very heart of the floods of sensation which, pouring in upon all sides, are incessantly striving to overwhelm it; and, secure in its strength, should ride, as in a life-boat, amid all the whirlpools of blind and fatalistic passion, which make the life of every man here below a sea of roaring troubles.

We now avail ourselves of the assistance of this antagonism,-which has thus been established as fact by experience, in order to displace the false fact generally, we might say universally, assumed in our current metaphysics, namely, that consciousness, or

Vol. XLIII., p. 445.

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