Note 78 — Chapter IV · THE WORLD OF THINGS—(1) SUBSTANCE, QUALITY, AND RELATION

Professor Sidgwick’s defence of the Lockian view (Philosophy: its Scope and Relations, p. 63 ff.) seems to me to ignore the point at issue. namely, that in any sense in which “secondary” qualities get their meaning from the content of sensation, primary qualities do the same. The whole point is that the sensation is not merely (as process) the occasion of our cognition of, e.g., hardness or softness, but also (as content) furnishes the very meaning of “hard” or “soft.” Cf. with what follows, Appearance and Reality, chap. 1.