His psychology is founded on a proposed distinction between " attuition " and reason.
His theory of "attuition," by which he supposes that we become conscious of objects outside ourselves, is his " return to dualism," and is indeed so like natural realism as to suggest that, like Ferrier, he starts from Hamilton to end in Hegel.
As, however, he does not suppose that we have a direct perception of something resisting the organism, such as Hamilton maintained, it becomes necessary to state exactly what he means by " attuition."
He carries its operation beforereason still farther, supposing that " attuition " makes particular inferences about outside objects, and that a man, or a dog, through association " attuites " sequence and invariableness of succession, and, in fact, gets as far in the direction of causation as Hume thought it possible to go at all.
Laurie's view is that a dog who has no higher faculty than " attuition," can go no farther; but that a man goes farther by reason.