Note (return) — MR BAILEY'S REPLY TO AN ARTICLE IN BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

But we hold that no truth in mental philosophy is more incontestable than this, that the sight originally, and of itself, furnishes us with no knowledge of the eye, as we now know that organ to exist. It does not inform us that we have an eye at all. And here we may hazard an observation, which, simple as it is, appears to us to be new, and not unimportant in aiding us to unravel the mysteries of sensation; which observation is, that, in no case whatever, does any sense inform us of the existence of its appropriate organ, or of the relation which subsists between that organ and its objects, but that the interposition of some other sense36 is invariably required to give us this information. This truth, which we believe holds good with regard to all the senses, is most strikingly exemplified in the case of vision, as we shall now endeavour to illustrate.