and looking remarkably like it; and beyond this again, sitting, with the evening gold covering it from crown to base, the mighty fortress itself, backed by the mountains of Granada, and the blue of the Mediterranean horizon. Association is, after all, the great charm even of the noblest features of natural beauty. Thus, the loveliness of the American landscape, or the grandeur of the mountain valleys of Southern Africa, is universally spoken of as wearying the eye. They have no associations with the past, they awaken no ideas but of external beauty. But when the stranger stands on the brow of the La Trocha, all around him is historic. To the Englishman, Gibraltar itself is history; not merely an English possession, but a scene of illustrious English remembrances, a trophy of the perseverance, the power, and the valour of England, fixed in the most conspicuous position of the earth; the centre of Europe. But the plain at my feet was the scene of the most romantic wars of the most romantic period of history, the middle ages; and the surrounding mountains had all once been the seats of the Spanish Moor. Even now there are few of those pinnacles which have not the remnant of a Moorish village, fortress, or city, glittering at an extraordinary elevation.

One I recollect, which gave me much the same idea of human habitancy one might have by living in the ball of St Paul's, except that the village was a little larger, and, perhaps, three times loftier. In all other matters it was nearly the same; in the sunshine it looked almost as golden, and I have no doubt it must have been reached by ladders quite as tiresome, endless, and perpendicular. Every one of these towers, doubtless, once had its mosque, its flag of scarlet and purple, its sentinels on the walls, its trumpets ringing for fight or foray, and its veiled beauties gazing on the troops of showy unbelievers galloping down the rocks to bring back plunder for their fair fingers. But Ferdinand and Isabella put an end to this drama. The age of common-place came in, the age of romance went out. Impalement, the Zenana, and the turban were no more. Five hundred years ago I should have heard a concert of Imaums. It would have sounded wonderfully well in the stillness of the

evening. But the only substitutes for the sonorous clang from the minarets, was the sound of the sheep-bell, and an occasional reverberation of musket or pistol, which told us that the Spaniards still kept their hands in practice, let the purpose be what it might.

We

At the foot of the mountain range which lay between us and the sea, I had two quarrels; one with the fellow who had hitherto acted as our guide, and the other with a mad bull. The guide was the much more unmanageable of the two. The bull was one of those which are kept for the exhibitions at Cadiz, and are suffered to run wild, for the express purpose of making the fiercer display of their horns and hoofs in the ring. As we were riding peaceably along, a whole herd of those very formidable animals took offence at us, and galloped on our track, bellowing furiously. We had no resource but to gallop before them, which we did for some distance. But we found ourselves out-generaled. A huge bull, probably the monarch of the herd, who had seen our flight, stationed himself in a narrow path, where we were fairly cut off. drew up, and then, though he did not advance upon us, he showed every determination to keep his post. The herd had fortunately halted, or, I think, we must have been trampled to pieces. In this dilemma, my friend the engineer showed the advantage of science. Dismounting, and giving the bridle of his horse into my charge, he crept on his hands and knees into the thicket, and gathering some fragments of rock on his-way, commenced from his ambush a furious discharge on the enemy's flank. The bull, at first surprised, no sooner ascertained the position of his assailant, than he bounded into the thicket, crushing the branches before him, and evidently determined to make short work with the engineer. But this left the path open, and through it I flew, halting on the opposite skirts of the jungle for my friend, whom I soon saw extricating himself, at the expense of scratched face and hands, while the bull was left roaring, and fighting his way long after. Woe be to the ca

valiero who was to face him when he could bring his horns into play!

Gibraltar.-The view of the fortress from the land side is unrivalled as a place of strength. Ehrenbreit

stein, the boast of the Rhine, is a toy to it and bears the same kind of resemblance which a model bears to a mountain. Gibraltar is more than a fortress, it is a fortified mountain; it is more still, it is a port, a city, a colony, and the gate of the Mediterranean. There is not the slightest exaggeration in saying that it possesses all those characters; and combining them, it is palpably the most remarkable position in the world. Yet there are bustling writers and party declaimers who would bid us give up Gibraltar, calculate how many pounds it costs yearly, and regarding the possession of pounds as the grand object of society, and the saving of farthings as the prime evidence of ministerial talent, discuss the abandonment of Gibraltar. But is national character nothing? the evidence that England is a great power in Europe, worth nothing? the means of sustaining her influence among the powers of Europe, Asia, and even of Africa, nothing? Or are not such things the surest protection even of the pounds themselves?-would not the same beggarly impolicy disband our fleets and armies, and prohibit all means of defence, until those who coveted our pounds were ready to march to our plunder?

Late years have made a great change in Gibraltar. General Don's governorship was much employed in adding to its comforts, and its beauty. Plantations now cover portions of the mountains, which were once sterile; and the efforts to secure salubrity and cleanliness have been considerably successful. But Gibraltar, in the hot months, is dreadfully hot; and, when the Levanter blows, the spirit sinks within one. No language can describe the utter exhaustion of mind and body during this Spanish Sirocco. All this reconciles one even to the damp day and cloudy sky of England. There, if we have but little of the blue ether, and dazzling beauty of the summer sun, moon, and stars, of the south, we are at least safe from the scorching and sickening blast that seems rushing from a furnace, and seems even more suffocating by night than by day; there we have no terrors of the mosquito, of the regular autumnal fever, or of every boat that comes from the eastward, lest it should carry a cargo of the plague. Azure skies are lovely things, but they may

be purchased too dear when they risk the comforts and the security of existence.

A tour of the fortifications is the regular routine of all travellers; and nothing can be more stupendous than their display. The galleries looking down on the isthmus, are fully equal to any work of ancient Rome for greatness of conception and indefatigable labour. All is the work of giants, but all in this quarter is thrown away. No assault will ever be made on this side of Gibraltar.

In one of my rides round the rock, I was accompanied by a German major, who was going out to give military instruction to the Sultan's troops. He was a person of remarkable information on general topics, and thus far I was inclined to trust to his knowledge of soldiership. As we looked down from the heights on the bustling town below, the troops on parade, the batteries, the huge mole, and the whole admirable and active scene of British life and power, he struck me by saying that Gibraltar, as a fortress, reminded him of some of the German castles, impregnable five hundred years ago, but which now could not stand an attack for twenty-four hours. My nationality was up in arms, and I reminded him, that not more than half a century had passed since it had baffled the force of both France and Spain.

"True," said he, " and if the same efforts were made in the same manner, it would baffle them again. What could be more absurd than the whole plan? A few ships were sent to fire on your batteries, with the object of tiring out your gunners; or seeing which party would be tired first. They threw in their shot against your rocks, while they were exposed to the discharge of all your batteries; they had not a tenth of the guns which could be brought to bear upon them; and by the necessity of the case they were torn to pieces."

"But what else could have been done? The batteries must have been first silenced."

"No: all the firing in Europe could not silence those batteries; and if they did, the business was still to be begun. The true and the only tactique would be to secure a landing for troops. If the ships fired at all, it should be only to knock down a frag

ment of your walls sufficient to let the troops land; or to employ the batteries, and take off their fire from the troops on their landing."

"But the attempt to take it by a regular siege would expose the assailants to the British fleet in their rear."

"A strong fleet of the enemy covering the attempt, might secure the besiegers; but the whole would probably be tried by coup-de-main. It might take forty or fifty thousand men to make success probable. But if such a force could once land, and avail themselves of a breach in the walls, made by the concentrated fire of their ships, the contest might be more than doubtful."

"But recollect the bravery of British troops."

"I am fully aware of it. I have fought at Ligny and Waterloo. They are a heroic army-the only force on earth whom I might call an army of grenadiers; but recollect what the garrison of Gibraltar would have to do. Supposing them to amount to 6000 men, they would have to defend some miles of fortification-to defend

a breach into which an overwhelming fire from the ships' batteries was pouring, until the moment when the troops mounted it. They would have to keep down a miscellaneous population, probably bribed; they would have a town in their rear full of combustible merchandise, and which a few shells would set in a blaze. And if the enemy broke in on any quarter of this great circuit, your troops must fight them from street to street, and from road to road, with increasing numbers constantly against them; and no citadel, nor any place of strength whatever inside the walls, to rally upon."

"I still think that no force of Europe will ever venture upon it."

"Certainly none, while England is wise enough to retain the command of the sea. The attempt would require fifty sail of the line, and fifty thousand men. But it will be made in the first great war of Europe. You have only to be prepared; strengthen your ramparts, plant them with heavier guns, make internal defences, build a citadel, and, on the first alarm of war, quadruple your garrison.'

THE great endeavour of philosophy, in all ages, has been to explain the nature of the connexion which subsists between the mind of man and the external universe: but it is to speculation of a very late date, that we owe the only approach that has been made to a satisfactory solution of this problem. In the following remarks on the state of modern speculation, we shall attempt to unfold this explanation; for it forms, we think, the very pith of the highest philosophy of recent times.

It will be seen that the question is resolved, not so much by having any positive answer given to it, as by being itself made to assume a totally new aspect. We shall find, upon reflection, that it is not what, at first sight, and on a superficial view, we imagined it to be. A change will come over the whole spirit of the question. Facts will arise, forcing it into a new form, even in spite of our efforts to keep it in its old shape. The very

understanding of it will alter it from what it was. It will not be annihilated-it will not be violently supplanted-but it will be gradually transformed; and this transformation will be seen to arise out of the very nature of thought-out of the very exercise of reason upon the question. It will be granted, that before a question can become a question, it must first of all be conceived. Therefore, before the question respecting the intercourse between mind and matter can be asked, it must be thought. Now, the whole drift of our coming argument, is to show that this question, in the very thinking of it, necessarily passes into a new question. And then, perhaps, the difficulty of answering this new question will be found to be not very great.

This consideration may, perhaps, conciliate forbearance at the outset of our enquiry at least. Any objections levelled against the question as it now stands, would evidently be prema

ture. For the present question is but the mask of another question; and unless it be known what that other question is, why should its shell be thrown aside as an unprofitable husk? Reader! spare the chrysalis for the sake of the living butterfly which perhaps may yet spring from its folds. The transformation we are going to attempt to describe, forms the most vital crisis in the whole history of speculation.

It must be kept in mind that our perception of an external universe is a phenomenon of a profounder and more vital character than is generally supposed. Besides having percep tions, the mind, it is said, is modified in a hundred other ways-by desires, passions, and emotions; and these, it is thought, contribute to form its reality, just as much as the perception of outward things does. But this is a mistake. Perception-the perception of an external universe-is the groundwork and condition of all other mental phenomena. It is the basis of the reality of mind. It is this reality itself. Through it, mind is what it is and without it, mind could not be conceived to exist. Since, therefore, perception is the very life of man, when we use the word mind in this discussion we shall understand thereby, the percipient being, or the perceiver. The word mind and the word percipient we shall consider convertible terms.

The earliest, and, in France and this country, the still dominant philosophy, explains the connexion between mind and matter, by means of the re-. lation of cause and effect. Outward things present to the senses, are the causes of our perceptions-our perceptions are the effects of their proximity. The presence of an external body, says Dr Brown, an organic change immediately consequent on its presence, and a mental affection:these, according to him, form three terms of a sequence, the statement of which is thought sufficiently to explain the phenomenon of perception, and to illustrate the intercourse which takes place between ourselves and outward objects.

This doctrine is obviously founded on a distinction laid down, between objects as they are in themselves, and objects as they are in our perceptions of them-in other words, between real objects and our perceptions of objects.

For, unless we made a discrimination between these two classes, we could have no ground for saying that the former were the causes of the latter.

Now, when any distinction is established, the tendency of the understanding is to render it as definite, complete, and absolute as it admits of being made. And, with regard to the present distinction, the understanding was certainly not idle. It took especial pains to render this distinction real and precise; and, by doing so, it prepared a building-ground for the various philosophical fabrics that were to follow for many generations. It taught, that the object in itself must be considered something which stood quite aloof from our perception of itthat our perception of the object must be considered something of which the real object formed no part. Had it been otherwise, the understanding would have pronounced the discrimination illogical, and consequently null and void.

It was this procedure of the understanding, with respect to the abovementioned distinction, which led to the universal adoption of a representative theory of perception. We are far from thinking that any of its authors adopted or promulgated this doctrine under that gross form of it against which Dr Reid and other philosophers have directed their shafts-under the form, namely, which holds, that outward things are represented by little images in the mind. Unquestionably, that view is a gross exaggeration of the real opinion. All that philosophers meant was-that we had perceptions of objects, and that these perceptions were not the objects themselves. Yet even this, the least exceptionable form of the theory that can be maintained, was found sufficient to subvert the foundations of all human certainty.

Here, then, it was, that doubts and difficulties began to break in upon philosophical inquiry. It was at this juncture that the schism between common sense and philosophy, which has not yet terminated, began. People had hitherto believed that they possessed an immediate or intuitive knowledge of an external universe: but now philosophers assured them that no such immediate knowledge was possible. All that man could immediately know, was either the object

itself, or his perception of it. It could not be both of these in one, for this explanation of perception was founded on the admitted assumption, that these two were distinct, and were to be kept distinct. Now, it could not be the object itself, for man knows the object only by knowing that he perceives it-in other words, by knowing his own perception of it; and the object and his perception being different, he could know the former only through his knowledge of the latter. Hence, knowing it through this vicarious phenomenon-namely, his own perception of it-he could only know it mediately; and therefore it was merely his own perceptions of an external universe, and not an external universe itself, that he was immediately cognizant of.

The immediate knowledge of an external universe being disproved, its reality was straightway called in question. For the existence of that which is not known immediately, or as it is in itself, requires to be established by an inference of reason. Instead, there fore, of asking, how is the intercourse carried on between man's mind and the external world? the question came to be this: Is there any real external world at all?

Three several systems undertook to answer this question. Hypothetical Realism, which defended the reality of the universe. Idealism, which denied its reality. And Scepticism, which maintained, that if there were an external universe, it must be something very different from what it ap

pears to us to be.

Hypothetical Realism was the orthodox creed, and became a great favourite with philosophers. It admitted that an outward world could not be immediately known; that we could be immediately and directly cognizant of nothing but our own subjective states-in other words, of nothing but our perceptions of this outward world; but, at the same time, it held that it must be postulated as a ground whereby to account for these impressions. This system was designed to reconcile common sense with philosophy; but it certainly had not the desired effect.

The convictions of common sense repudiated the decrees of so hollow a philosophy. The belief which this system aimed at creating, was not the belief in which common sense

rejoiced. To the man who thought and felt with the mass, the universe was no hypothesis-no inference of reason-but a direct reality which he had immediately before him. His perception of the universe-that is, the universe as he was cognizant of it in perception-was, he felt convinced, the very universe as it was in itself.

Idealism did not care to conciliate common sense; but it maintained, that if we must have recourse to an hypothesis to explain the origin of our perceptions, it would be a simpler one to say, that they arose in conformity with the original laws of our constitutionor simply because it was the will of our Creator that they should arise in the way they do. Thus, a real external world, called into existence by hypothetical Realism, (no other Realism was at present possible,) merely to account for our perceptions, was easily dispensed with as a very unnecessary encumbrance.

Scepticism assumed various modifications; but the chief guise in which it sought to outrage the convictions of mankind was, by first admitting the reality of an external world, and then by proving that this world could not correspond with our perceptions of it. Because, in producing these perceptions, its effects were, of necessity, modified by the nature of the percipient principle on which it operated: and hence our perceptions being the joint result of external nature and our own nature, they could not possibly be true and faithful representatives of the former alone. They could not but convey a false and perverted information. Thus man's primary convictions, which taught him that the universe was what it appeared to be, were placed in direct opposition to the conclusions of his reason, which now informed him that it must be something very different from what he took it for.

Thus, in consequence of one fatal and fundamental oversight, the earlier philosophy was involved in inextricable perplexities, in its efforts to unravel the mysteries of perception. But we are now approaching times in which this oversight was retrieved, and in which, under the scrutiny of genuine speculation, the whole character and bearings of the question became altered. Its old features were obliterated; and out of the crucible of