A further

to each one who thinks, while he thinks, the proposition "thought is," is a necessary truth. I maintain, howconsequence. ever, that this proposition can be proved to carry with it (if it is to have any meaning) a store of objective truth, amply sufficient to establish the validity of all first truths. I further maintain that it is impossible intelligently to utter the monosyllable "thought" without thereby laying implicitly the foundations of the whole of philosophy, a whole system of universal and necessary truth. For the word "thought," intelligently uttered, must at the very least contain the conception of "existence," and involve a psychological judgment which, ex

What the word "thought" implies.

plicity evolved, is the judgment "thought is." But a "judgment" has no meaning without both a "subject" and an “object,” and the first of these two words is meaningless without the conception of an "Ego" and "its states,” and the term "object" necessarily carries with it the conception of the "non-Ego-actual or possible." Again, the exclamation thought," since it necessarily involves the conception of existence or being, carries with it, by necessary correlation, the conception "not being;" and this, again, necessarily involves "relation” and the principle of contradiction, and therefore the idea "truth;" and "truth" is meaningless, unless we accept the co-existence of "objective being" and "an intellect," together with a relation of conformity between the two. For "truth" is nothing else but a relation of con"truth" is formity between some existence and some being that knows such existence. To say that anything is true, as, e.g., that "Mr. Disraeli is our Prime Minister," is to assert a conformity between the mental judgment so expressed and the really existing external facts signified by that proposition.

What

Quite lately* indeed truth has been defined as "the equivalence of the terms of a proposition," but this definition seems a defective one. When a proposition is declared to be true, it is not its "terms" only which are referred to, but what those

* See Lewes's' Problems of Life and Mind,' vol. ii. p. 88.

tnem.

terms denote, and the conformity existing between the interrelations of the things so denoted as they actually exist externally and the mental judgment verbally expressed respecting If reference is not expressly made to the truth of a true proposition, its truth none the less consists in that conformity, and reposes not on the "terms" but the objective realities they denote. There is no equivalence between the terms “Mr. Disraeli " and "England's Prime Minister," and there is no truth between "London Bridge" and "a way across the river Thames." There is, however, equivalence in what is denoted by the terms, and there is truth in the proposition, "London Bridge is a way across the river Thames:" that is to say, the objective facts conform to the mental judgment so expressed concerning them-in other words, in the relation between objective existences and the intellect.

truth.

To return, however, to our argument: every Nescient will admit that the real existence of a present actual "Necessary state of consciousness is an absolute and necessary truth to that consciousness; so much so, that no malevolent being, however powerful, could in this deceive. Were our existence made up of a succession of shifting deceits, yet that a thought or feeling exists at the moment we actually experience its existence, is what, by universal consent, is beyond question. That "a state of consciousness is," is therefore a "necessary truth." But as to "truth," we have just seen its implications; and with regard to the word necessary," it can have no meaning, except we apprehend causation,” together with " possibility" and "impossibility," revealing to us a difference between actual being and merely possible being, as also between the necessary and contingent categories of actual being.

tics' assertion

If, then, the above proposition," a state of consciousness is,” is necessarily true, it follows that a whole world of The Agnosnecessary truth is thereby and therein implied. If, if valid imon the contrary, it be asserted that these impli- truths they cations, or any of them, are untrue or invalid- deny. not objectively true-then the proposition is unmeaning, and

plies many

we can not affirm that a demon could not deceive us as to the existence of a passing thought. If however we cannot so affirm, then the Agnostics are wrong (for they, the Agnostics, say that to this extent there is certainty), and we are landed in utter scepticism. If they choose the other horn of the dilemma, and assert the necessary impotence of thought or of language, then, as we have seen, they thereby assert that everything which can be thought or said is necessarily uncertain; and this, again, implies certainty; so that the Agnostics are inextricably inclosed in a vicious circle. They cannot even speak interrogatively; they cannot say, "How do you know that thought is not self-existent ?" for the use or implication of one personal pronoun ipso facto removes them from their own chosen position, and lands them in that world of objectivity and reality they would so insanely and so inconsequently disown.

Logical con

We come now to the last matter which it is here suggested should be pressed upon Agnostics. It is the result sequences. and outcome of the foregoing observations—namely, that they (the Agnostics) are logically driven to admit and accept the following affirmation, under pain of utter scepticism:

That our persuasion and spontaneous belief as to the exist ence of a continuously enduring self underlying the changing series of phenomena we term "states of consciousness" are valid, and the results of a true perception of our own objective existence. We are forced to admit that the thinking being I call myself at this moment is substantially one and identical with the agent who carried on the long series of acts and endurances I call my past life. We are driven to affirm that we have indeed a direct intuition of passing modifications, but that we have a no less clear, no less certain intuition of a mysterious, substantial unity, which reason tells us, if we can be certain of anything, is due to a peculiar faculty of perceiving truth, which faculty we term the intellect. I say "of perceiving truth," for if what is perceived as necessarily true (not merely passively unthinkable)

is not truth, then there is no truth at all for us, and we must fall into "absolute scepticism," where all intellectual conflict becomes an absurdity. If we may make any affirmation whatever, it is the affirmation of our own existence, and yet that cannot be made without accepting the trustworthiness of memory. But what do we not admit in admitting so much ?

*

It is in vain that we try to get rid of the mysterious. Mr. Herbert Spencer himself is quite unable to get rid of "mystery." He says, there is " a warrant higher than that which any argument can give, for asserting an objective existence. Mysterious as seems the consciousness of something which is yet out of consciousness, he finds that he alleges the reality of this something in virtue of the ultimate law-he is obliged to think it."

Speaking on this subject, Professor Huxley has fallen into one of the strangest fallacies it has been our lot to A curious encounter. He says† that the "general trustworthi- fallacy. ness of memory" and "the general constancy of the order of nature" " are of the highest practical value, inasmuch as the conclusions logically drawn from them are always verified by experience!" As if experience itself was possible, unless memory could be relied on as trustworthy. My "experience" would be of little value to me if I could not be certain it was mine, and not that of somebody else. As to this fallacy, a writer in the Dublin Review' observes :

"To this singular piece of reasoning we put forth (p. 46) an obvious reply. You tell us that you trust your present act of memory, because in innumerable past instances the avouchments of memory have been true. How do you know-how can you even guess-that there has been one such instance? Because you trust your present act of memory; no other answer can possibly be given. Never was there so audacious an instance of arguing in a circle. You know forsooth that your present act of memory can be trusted, because in innumerable past instances the avouchment of memory has been true; and you

Essays' (stereotyped edition), vol. ii. p. 407.

Lay Sermons,' p. 359,

See in Dublin Review,' July 1873, the article on Mr. Mill's reply to tho 'Dublin Review.'

know that in innumerable past instances the avouchment of memory has been true, because you trust your present act of memory. The blind man leads the blind round a 'circle' incurably' vicious.'

"Let us observe the Professor's philosophical position. It is his principle, that men know nothing with certitude, except their present consciousness. Now, on this principle, it is just as absurd to say that the facts testified by memory are probably, as that they are certainly true. What can be more violently unscientific, we asked (p. 50, note)-from the stand-point of experimental science-than to assume without grounds as ever so faintly probable the very singular proposition, that mental phenomena (by some entirely unknown law) have proceeded in such a fashion, that my clear impression of the past corresponds with my past experience? Professor Huxley possesses no doubt signal ability in his own line; but surely as a metaphysician he exhibits a sorry spectacle. He busies himself in his latter capacity with diligently overthrowing the only principle on which his researches as a physicist can have value or even meaning."

plied in asserting the

trustworth

ness of meinory.

The trustworthiness of memory is as mysterious and exactWhat is im- ing a dogma as the trustworthiness of our perceptions of universally necessary objective truth-nay, it is as mysterious as any of the dogmas which the objectivist philosophy enunciates, and yet without admitting this trustworthiness we cannot advance one step. By admitting it, we allow to our intellect the faculty of perceiving objective existence, of which the senses can give no account, and which is altogether removed from the field of sensible experience. If we admit the validity of such cognitions, on what ground are we to deny the validity of other intellectual cognitions which are no less an object of certainty? If the mind has the power now of cognizing acts performed by it, but removed by half a century's interval from the domain of present experience, why may it not perceive the necessary properties of all possible triangles, though experience can give us cognizance of but a few actual triangles?

*

Here, then, we may firmly take our stand, and assert that

* Mr. Herbert Spencer himself well observes: "Is it, then, that the trustworthiness of memory is less open to doubt than the immediate consciousness that the quantities must be unequal if they differ from a third quantity in unequal degress ?"—' Essays' (stereotyped edition), vol. ii. p. 411.