the intellect shows us its own objective validity. Let him who denies it beware; for the denial of any certainty as to his own existence follows logically and necessarily from such negation, and thus fails all certainty whatever, even the certainty that there is no certainty, or that the words certainty and uncertainty have any difference of signification, or that any words have any meaning, or that meaning or being of any kind can exist, or even be really thought.

Mr. Spencer's

view as to

ledge of our

Reference has been just above made to Mr. Herbert Spencer, and as he has a different but more important band of philosophical disciples than has Professor Huxley, and as Mr. Darwin has bestowed on him the title "our great philosopher," it would ence. be interesting to learn precisely his view concerning our knowledge of our own existence.

own exist

Unfortunately, Mr. Spencer is hardly clear in his enunciations respecting our knowledge of our own continued personal existence.

In his chapter on "The Substance of Mind" * he remarks: "If by the phrase 'substance of mind' is to be understood mind as qualitatively differentiated in each portion that is separable by introspection but seems homogeneous and undecomposable; then we do know something about the substance of Mind, and may eventually know more. Assumingt an underlying something, it is possible in some cases to see, and in the rest to conceive, how these multitudinous modifications of it arise. But if the phrase is taken to mean the underlying something of which these distinguishable portions are formed, or of which they are modifications; then we know nothing about it, and never can know anything about it.”

truism or an

Now, if by this Mr. Spencer means we cannot know our ɔwn soul otherwise than in and by its acts, he only He asserts a asserts what has been ever taught by the schools to absurdity. which he is most opposed. No rational metaphysician ever

* 'Psychology,' vol. i. p. 145.

† It may be well asked, on what ground shall we make this assumption? Jnless he grants a self-consciousness, which he does not grant, such au ssumption will be both groundless and unverifiable.

taught that the soul could be known by us in its essence or otherwise than by its acts.

But if by the passage quoted he would deny that we have direct consciousness of an enduring and persistent self, known to us by its acts as the author of our volitions and the subject of our feelings and cognitions, then we might equally deny that Mr. Spencer has, or ever can have, any knowledge of any friend as, e.g., Professor Tyndall.

tion.

If by Professor Tyndall is to be understood a plexus of An Illustra- sensible accidents-an entity "qualitatively differentiated in each portion that is separable by thought "—then Mr. Spencer may "know something" about Professor Tyndall, "and may eventually know more." But if the name is taken to mean the underlying something which is now speaking, now silent, now in the Alps, now at the Royal Institution, at one time a boy, at another a man, which has a certain expression of face, a certain habit of dress, a certain mode of carriage, a certain cast of thoughtthen Mr. Spencer knows "nothing about it, and never can know anything about it:" since he can never know his friend but by and through some act, were it only by action on the retina of Mr. Spencer, or by some active impressions on his auditory nerves.

An argu

mentum ad

But we have said Mr. Spencer is hardly clear in this matter, and we may add, he is hardly consistent. hominem. He is not consistent; because if there is one prominent feature of his teaching, it is the supreme certainty borne in on us of the existence of what he calls the absolute and unmodified "unknowable."

Yet all that Mr. Spencer brings against our consciousness of the Ego may be brought against his unknowable. If everything that we know is a form of the unknowable, then the unknowable is modified, and the absolute or unmodified unknowable is an absurdity.

Similarly, that we cannot know the Ego except as qualitatively differentiated is most true, but it is true for the very simple reason that it never exists except in some state. A

qualitatively undifferentiated Ego is a pure absurdity and an impossibility. No wonder, then, our intellects do not appre

hend it.

asserts im

istence of

He teus us that the substance of mind cannot possibly be known, because since "every state of mind is what he some modification of this substance of mind," plies the exin no state of mind can the substance of mind be present unmodified. But this does not prove that the continuance of mind is unknowable, but only that it is not knowable except in its modifications.

what he
denies.

Mr. Spencer talks of states of mind known as "states of mind," or "modifications of mind." modifications of mind." But there cannot be a consciousness of difference without a comparison, and two things cannot be compared if one is unknown and unknowable. Therefore these "states" and "modifications" can only be known as such by comparison with a "persistent substance" of mind, and therefore this must be known in order that we may know "stetes of mind" as "states of mind."

But an attempt to deny our knowledge of the substantial Ego, without at the same time implicitly asserting that knowledge, is really an effort to escape self-consciousness, which can be but very inadequately represented by the conception of a man trying to jump away from his own shadow.

We may then conclude that in affirming our certain knowledge of our own continued existence we hold a Conclusion position we can maintain against all assailants. arrived at. We have in that certainty a starting-point of knowledge such as we set out to seek, namely, one that is thoroughly satisfactory. If indeed we have not with respect to that self-existence the highest degree of certainty, then the intellect is deprived of any firm foundation whereon to raise a rational system of co-ordinated knowledge. But it is hoped that the cavils of the Agnostics have been here met by arguments sufficient to enable even the most timid and deferential readers and hearers of our modern Sophists to hold their own rational convictions, and to maintain they know what

they are convinced they do know, and not to give up a certain and absolute truth (their intellectual birthright) at the bidding of those who would illogically make use of such negation as a ground for affirming the relativity of all our knowledge, and consequently for denying all such truths as, for whatever reason, they may desire to deny.

son from nature.

Such, then, is the first lesson we may draw from the inThe first les vestigation of nature as revealed to us in and by our own minds. Our continued personal existence is a certainty absolute and irresistible, directly known to us as a particular contingent fact by means of consciousness itself. Our supreme certainty of this truth has, as we have seen, been denied on grounds which, it is here contended, plainly show a want of accurate analysis and of careful introspection on the part of the deniers. Their denial, however, serves to bring out still more clearly the supreme importance of our recognition of our own self-consciousness, and of all that our knowledge of the Ego implies and contains. Each man who for the first time has his eyes thus opened to the marvellous nature of his present knowledge of his own. past existence will see in this necessarily postulated "veracity of memory" the evidence of his possession of real objective truth and of knowledge other than phenomenal. That is to say, he will see that his own mind has the power (however acquired and however mysterious) of penetrating beyond the appearances of things, beyond mere feelings, and the constant changes of nature, and of attaining a direct knowledge of a persistent and real being-namely, himself, as both past and present-learning through his passing states and feelings the fact of his own persistent and enduring being. We may now seek to learn whether this first lesson taught us by nature can aid towards the acquirement of further certainty.

CHAPTER II.

FIRST TRUTHS.

Knowledge must be based on the study of mental facts and on undemonstrable truths which declare their own absolute certainty, and are seen by the mind to be positively and necessarily true.”

we can have absolute cer, tainty with

THE first lesson we have gathered from nature, one which is certain and indisputable, is the fact of our own Self-knowcontinued personal existence revealed to us by ledge shows consciousness and by memory. This certainty, though absolute, rests upon an immediately known out proof. fact, and not upon evidence; neither is it capable of proof, being above and beyond all proof of whatever kind. It is thus manifest that we may have absolute certainty without proof, and a moment's reflection suffices to show that there must be truths of this order-truths as certain as they are undemonstrable. For demonstration can but proceed by proving some propositions by the help of others which will not be denied; and this process, unless it is to go on for ever, must stop at truths which can be at once seen to be self-evident and indisputable. If no such truths can possibly be found, then the mind can have no secure basis whatever upon which to rear a fabric of reasoned and coherent truth. And here it might be expected that in gathering lessons from nature our course should be to start from a consideration of external objects, proceeding from we should bethe lower and more simple to the higher and more mind before complex, till we reach, at last, the highest nature which our senses make known to us, namely, our

Reasons why

gin with a study of

studying ex

ture.