It matters very little how in detail we work with it.

A thing is coloured, but not coloured in the same way to

every eye; and, except to some eye, it seems not

coloured at all. Is it then coloured or not? And the eye

--relation to which appears somehow to make the quality

--does that itself possess colour? Clearly not so,

unless there is another eye which sees it. Nothing

therefore is really coloured; colour seems only to

belong to what itself is colourless. And the same result

holds, again, with cold and heat. A thing may be cold or

hot according to different parts of my skin; and,

without some relation to a skin, it seems without any

such quality. And, by a like argument, the skin is

proved not itself to own the quality, which is hence

possessed by nothing. And sounds, not heard, are hardly

real; while what hears them is the ear, itself not

audible, nor even always in the enjoyment of sound. With

smell and with taste the case seems almost worse; for

they are more obviously mixed up with our pleasure and

pain. If a thing tastes only in the mouth, is taste its

quality? Has it smell where there is no nose? But nose

and tongue are smelt or tasted only by another nose or

tongue; nor can either again be said to have as a

quality what they sometimes enjoy. And the pleasant and

disgusting, which we boldly locate in the object, how

can they be there? Is a thing delightful or sickening

really and in itself? Am even I the constant owner of

these wandering adjectives?--But I will not weary the

reader by insistence on detail. The argument shows

everywhere that things have secondary qualities only for

an organ; and that the organ itself has these

qualities in no other way. They are found to be

adjectives, somehow supervening on relations of the

extended. The extended only is real. And the facts of

what is called subjective sensation, under which we may

include dream and delusion of all kinds, may be adduced

in support. They go to show that, as we can have the

sensation without the object, and the object without the

sensation, the one cannot possibly be a quality of the

other. The secondary qualities, therefore, are

appearance, coming from the reality, which itself has no

quality but extension.

This argument has two sides, a negative and a

positive. The first denies that secondary qualities are

the actual nature of things, the second goes on to make

an affirmation about the primary. I will enquire first

if the negative assertion is justified. I will not

dispute the truth of the principle that, if a thing has

a quality, it must have it; but I will ask whether on

this basis some defence may not be made. And we may

attempt it in this way. All the arguments, we may

protest, do but show defect in, or interference with,

the organ of perception. The fact that I cannot receive

the secondary qualities except under certain conditions,

fails to prove that they are not there and existing in

the thing. And, supposing that they are there, still the

argument proves their absence, and is hence unsound. And

sheer delusion and dreams do not overthrow this defence.

The qualities are constant in the things themselves;

and, if they fail to impart themselves, or impart

themselves wrongly, that is always due to something

outside their nature. If we could perceive them, they

are there.

But this way of defence seems hardly tenable. For, if

the qualities impart themselves never except under

conditions, how in the end are we to say what they are

when unconditioned? Having once begun, and having been

compelled, to take their appearance into the

account, we cannot afterwards strike it out. It being

admitted that the qualities come to us always in a

relation, and always as appearing, then certainly we

know them only as appearance. And the mere supposition

that in themselves they may really be what they are,

seems quite meaningless or self-destructive. Further, we

may enforce this conclusion by a palpable instance. To

hold that one's mistress is charming, ever and in

herself, is an article of faith, and beyond reach of

question. But, if we turn to common things, the result

will be otherwise. We observed that the disgusting and

the pleasant may make part of the character of a taste

or a smell, while to take these aspects as a constant

quality, either of the thing or of the organ, seems more

than unjustifiable, and even almost ridiculous. And on

the whole we must admit that the defence has broken

down. The secondary qualities must be judged to be

merely appearance.

But are they the appearance of the primary, and are

these the reality? The positive side of the contention

was that in the extended we have the essence of the

thing; and it is necessary to ask if this conclusion is

true. The doctrine is, of course, materialism, and is a

very simple creed. What is extended, together with its

spatial relations, is substantive fact, and the rest is

adjectival. We have not to ask here if this view is

scientific, in the sense of being necessarily used for

work in some sciences. That has, of course, nothing to

do with the question now before us, since we are

enquiring solely whether the doctrine is true. And,

regarded in this way, perhaps no student would call

materialism scientific.

I will indicate briefly the arguments against the

sole reality of primary qualities. (a) In the first

place, we may ask how, in the nature the extended, the

terms stand to the relations which have to hold

between them. This is a problem to be handled later

(Chapter iv.), and I will only remark here that its

result is fatal to materialism. And, (b) in the second

place, the relation of the primary qualities to the

secondary--in which class feeling and thought have

presumably to be placed--seems wholly unintelligible.

For nothing is actually removed from existence by being

labelled "appearance." What appears is there, and must

be dealt with; but materialism has no rational way of

dealing with appearance. Appearance must belong, and yet

cannot belong, to the extended. It neither is able to

fall somewhere apart, since there is no other real

place; nor ought it, since, if so, the relation would

vanish and appearance would cease to be derivative. But,

on the other side, if it belongs in any sense to the

reality, how can it be shown not to infect that with its

own unreal character? Or we may urge that matter must

cease to be itself, if qualified essentially by all that

is secondary. But, taken otherwise, it has become itself

but one out of two elements, and is not the reality.

And, (c) thirdly, the line of reasoning which showed

that secondary qualities are not real, has equal force

as applied to primary. The extended comes to us only by

relation to an organ; and, whether the organ is touch or

is sight or muscle-feeling--or whatever else it may be--

makes no difference to the argument. For, in any case,

the thing is perceived by us through an affection of our

body, and never without that. And our body itself is no

exception, for we perceive that, as extended, solely by

the action of one part upon another percipient part.

That we have no miraculous intuition of our body as

spatial reality is perfectly certain. But, if so, the

extended thing will have its quality only when perceived

by something else; and the percipient something else is

again in the same case. Nothing, in short, proves

extended except in relation to another thing,

which itself does not possess the quality, if you try to

take it by itself. And, further, the objection from

dream and delusion holds again. That objection urges

that error points to a necessary relation of the object

to our knowledge, even where error is not admitted. But

such a relation would reduce every quality to

appearance. We might, indeed, attempt once more here to

hold the former line of defence. We might reply that the

extended thing is a fact real by itself, and that only

its relation to our percipience is variable. But the

inevitable conclusion is not so to be averted. If a

thing is known to have a quality only under a certain

condition, there is no process of reasoning from this

which will justify the conclusion that the thing, if

unconditioned, is yet the same. This seems quite

certain; and, to go further, if we have no other source

of information, if the quality in question is non-

existent for us except in one relation, then for us to

assert its reality away from that relation is more than

unwarranted. It is, to speak plainly, an attempt in the

end without meaning. And it would seem that, if

materialism is to stand, it must somehow get to the

existence of primary qualities in a way which avoids

their relation to an organ. But since, as we shall

hereafter see (Chapter iv.), their very essence is

relative, even this refuge is closed.

(d) But there is a more obvious argument against the

sole reality of spatial qualities; and, if I were

writing for the people an attack upon materialism, I

should rest great weight on this point. Without

secondary quality extension is not conceivable, and no

one can bring it, as existing, before his mind if he

keeps it quite pure. In short, it is the violent

abstraction of one aspect from the rest, and the mere

confinement of our attention to a single side of things,

a fiction which, forgetting itself, takes a ghost for

solid reality. And I will say a few words on this

obvious answer to materialism.

That doctrine, of course, holds that the

extended can be actual, entirely apart from every other

quality. But extension is never so given. If it is