ticular sensations manifested as this human body
were essential to his apprehension of all his other sensations whatsoever.
It is this latter species of finding--the finding, namely, of certain
sensations as the essential condition on which the apprehension of all
other sensations depends; it is this finding alone which gives each man a
paramount and indisputable title to that "treasure trove" which he calls
his own body. Now, it is only after going through a considerable course of
experience and experiment, that we can ascertain what the particular
sensations are upon which all our other sensations are dependent. And
therefore were we not right in saying, that a man's body is not given to
him directly and at once, but that he takes a certain time, and must go
through a certain process, to acquire it?

The conclusion which we would deduce from the whole of the foregoing
remarks is, that the great law of _living_[21] sensation, the _rationale_
of sensation as a _living_ process, is this, that the senses are not
merely _presentative_--_i.e._ they not only bring sensations before us, but
that they are _self-presentative_--_i.e._ they, moreover, bring themselves
before us as sensations. But for this law we should never get beyond our
mere subjective modifications; but in virtue of it we necessarily get
beyond them; for the results of the law are, 1st, that we, the subject,
restrict ourselves to, or identify ourselves with, the senses, not as
displayed in their primary sphere, (the large circle A,) but as falling
within their own ken as sensations, in their secondary sphere, (the small
circle A.) This smaller sphere is our own bodily frame; and does not each
individual look upon himself as vested in his own bodily frame? And 2ndly,
it is a necessary consequence of this investment or restriction, that
every sensation which lies beyond the sphere of the senses, viewed as
sensations, (_i.e._ which lies beyond the body,) must be, in the most
unequivocal sense of the words, a real independent object. If the reader
wants a name to characterise this system, he may call it the system of
_Absolute or Thorough-going presentationism_.

[21] We say _living_, because every attempt hitherto made to
explain sensation, has been founded on certain appearances
manifested in the _dead_ subject. By inspecting a dead carcass we
shall never discover the principle of vision. Yet, though there is
no seeing in a dead eye, or in a