The two former of these beliefs, explicitly argues Sir William Hamilton, in defending his system against the sceptic, because irresistible, are true. The latter of these beliefs, implicitly argues Sir William Hamilton, in establishing his system itself, though irresistible, is false.

We are not now concerned with the tenability of Dr. Brown's position, or with the tenability of Sir W. Hamilton's criticism. We have to note only that if Sir W. Hamilton's argument is conclusive against Dr. Brown, a parallel argument is conclusive against himself; and that either the criterion he erects is no criterion, or that his belief respecting the subjectivity of Space is disproved by his criterion.

§ 401. Such, then, are metaphysical reasonings; not selected from the works of one writer or one school, but from the works of a series of writers of different schools -Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hamilton. While disagreeing in other respects, these writers agree in the professed rejection of some or many of the fundamental dicta of consciousness. The passages quoted and criticized have been. typical passages directly referring to these fundamental dicta; and the reasonings have been reasonings considered sufficient to disprove them. Have they the requisite cogency? So far from having it, they are full of defects which would invalidate quite ordinary inferences.

In one case we find that what is to be denied in the conclusion is tacitly affirmed in the premises. Now transcendent mental capacity is made the basis for proof of mental incapacity; and disproof of our consciousness of a thing is made to proceed upon our consciousness of another thing which the same argument disproves. To escape from a difficulty of thought, half-a-dozen impossibilities of thought are offered by way of refuge. And once more, the test of true cognitions, which is alleged to be final, is, without any assigned reason, assumed to be worthless in respect of particular cognitions.

CHAPTER V.

NEGATIVE JUSTIFICATION OF REALISM.

§ 402. The foregoing three chapters contain a general survey of the metaphysical position. We have seen that metaphysicians proceed on a tacit assumption which they make no attempt to justify; and which cannot possibly be justified. We have seen that the words they use, one and all, turn traitors; and along with every proposition they are set to express, persist in expressing some fatal counter-proposition. We have also seen that the reasonings framed out of these propositions cannot be coerced into establishing that which they are intended to establish; but have to take for their fulcrum that which is to be dis-established, and are powerless when that fulcrum is removed.

For ordinary purposes such an examination, leading to such results, might be held sufficient. Here, however, it is not intended as more than an introduction. It foreshadows the analytical argument on which we are now to enter, and still more vaguely the synthetical argument that is to supplement it—the one a negative justification of Realism and the other a positive justification of Realism.

By a negative justification of Realism, I mean a proof that Realism rests on evidence having a greater validity than the evidence on which any counter-hypothesis rests. By such proof the realistic belief is negatively justified; inasmuch as no belief having a better justification exists.

Before proceeding to an ultimate analysis, we will advance the examination a stage by making a proximate analysis.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ARGUMENT FROM PRIORITY.

$403. Twice in the course of this work (§§ 204 and 332, note) I have named, as illustrating in a remarkable way the effect of habit, the power acquired by microscopists of so moving objects under a microscope as to neutralize the apparent inversions of their motions. This adjustment, which is such that, to move the object to the right the fingers must be moved to the left, and to move it up they must be moved down, is, after long practice, made automatically, and comes to seem quite natural-so natural that when, for certain purposes, there is used an "erecting glass," which brings the visible motions into their ordinary relations with the tactual motions, these relations seem to be unnatural; and the microscopist is as much perplexed by this normal connexion of impressions as he originally was by the abnormal one.

Habit, thus shown to produce so striking a result in the sphere of simple external perception, is capable of producing a no less striking result in the sphere of that complex internal perception which we call reasoning. Here, too, by frequently presenting sequences of thought under an inverted relation, there is gradually superinduced the belief that this is their direct relation. From persistently contemplating them in a certain hypothetical order, exactly opposite to their real order, the hypothetical order eventually comes to appear as the real order and the real order as the hypothetical,

This is the attitude of mind generated by habit in the metaphysician. So accustomed is he to look through the introspective instrument which reverses the succession of his experiences, that the reversed succession is taken by him for the direct succession; and when he is made to look through an "erecting glass" which rectifies the succession, everything seems to him turned the wrong side up.

From this introductory parallel let us pass to the argument which it pre-figures.

§ 404. The postulate with which metaphysical reasoning sets out, is that we are primarily conscious only of our sensations that we certainly know we have these, and that if there be anything beyond these serving as cause for them, it can be known only by inference from them.

I shall give much surprise to the metaphysical reader if I call in question this postulate; and the surprise will rise into astonishment if I distinctly deny it. Yet I must do this. Limiting the proposition to those epi-peripheral feelings produced in us by external objects (for these are alone in question) I see no alternative but to affirm that the thing primarily known, is not that a sensation has been experienced, but that there exists an outer object. Instead of admitting that the primordial and unquestionable knowledge is the existence of a sensation, I assert, contrariwise, that the existence of a sensation is an hypothesis that cannot be framed until external existence is known. This entire inversion of his conception, which to the metaphysician will seem so absurd, is one that inevitably takes place when we inspect the phenomena of consciousness in their order of genesis: using, for our "erecting glass," the mental biography of a child, or the developed conception of things held in common by the savage and the rustic.

During his early days a boy eats, plays, pulls to pieces his toys, quarrels with his brothers, and carries on a life in which things, and persons, and places, and acts, become

familiar, and are dealt with in a way implying an apprehension of them essentially similar to that which adults have. During the same period there is acquired a knowledge of language sufficient for understanding aud expressing simple propositions respecting objects, properties, and relations. But now let us ask, at what age does the boy first use any word ending in "ation"; and how many years is it before the meaning of "sensation" can be explained to him? Its first component "sense," understood as the general name for hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell, is for a long time incomprehensible. The force of the ending, "ation," cannot by any possibility be known until the power of forming abstractions has been considerably developed. And the doubly-abstract term "sensation," remains for a still longer period without meaning. Equally obvious, or even more obvious, is the child's inability to know that he has sensations, when we remember his inability to form a definite conception of his own individuality. No urchin from the nursery speaks of himself as "I." He regards himself as an object. Hearing himself called "Georgy," he will say "Give Georgy," when he wants something; or will plaintively indicate "Georgy" as the cause of the evil when he has hurt himself. Such a form of speech as "I hurt myself," is never heard among young children. That synthesis of all the experiences and powers, past and present, constituting the conception of self, is far beyond the ability of an undeveloped intelligence. So that neither the subject nor the predicate of the proposition-" I have a sensation," can be even separately framed by a child, much less put together.

The notion of personal identity, though more developed in the savage, is still so imperfectly developed that he cannot. form the consciousness which the metaphysician posits as primordial. In the languages of the lowest races there are no words answering to "mind" and "ideas." The uncivilized man has, indeed, got tho belief in another self that goes away in dreams, and leaves the body for a longer time at