considerations in order to maintain three propositions, assent On condition to which must be a sine quâ non to further discussion, as without such assent discussion would be positions. an aimless and futile waste of time.

of admitting

three pre

liminary pro

The first of these considerations relates to "absolute scepticism;" and the first proposition is that such scepticism, with every position which necessarily involves it, is to be regarded as an absurdity. The second consideration relates to good faith and economy of time in controversy; and the second proposition is that no position is to be defended which cannot be believed to be really and seriously maintained by some one. The third consideration refers to language; and the third proposition is that what is distinctly and clearly conceived by the mind can be expressed by terms practically adequate to convey such conceptions to other minds.

The first preliminary consideration to be insisted on may be stated thus:

I. Absolute scepticism, with every position that necessarily involves it, is to be rejected as an absurdity.

The first pro

The truth contained in this assertion serves to clear away a hinderance which otherwise might at first, and position. indeed continually, impede our progress. This hinderance consists in a haziness as to the necessary limits of all discussion, hiding the point at which all controversy becomes unmeaning-nay, logically impossible. Before discussing any fundamental questions, the truth that discussion is, as a fact, possible should be clearly recognised, as also that there is such a thing as truth, and that some conclusions are true. Without this recognition, whatever conclusions we arrive at may be vitiated by a latent doubt whether any conclusion on any subject can under any circumstances be ever valid. If nothing is certain, if there is no real dis⚫tinction between truth and falsehood, there can, of course, be no useful discussion. If any man is not certain, absolutely certain, that he is not a tree or the rustle of its leaves; if he is not certain that there are such things as thoughts and

words, and that the same word can be employed twice with the same meaning, as also that he is the same person when he ends a sentence as he was when he began it, he cannot carry on even a rational monologue; and if he really doubts as to whether an opporent has substantially the same powers of understanding and expression as he has himself-no controversy can be reasonably undertaken. If our life may be a dream within a dream, if we may not be supremely sure that a thing cannot both be and not be—at the same time and in the same sense--then thinking may indeed be affirmed to be an idle waste of thought, were it not impossible to affirm that anything is or is not anything, and as impossible to affirm such impossibility. Such scepticism is, of course, as practically impossible as it is absurd. Doubt may be expressed as to the validity of all intellectual acts, but any attempt to defend the sceptical position thereby actually demonstrates a belief in such validity on the very part of him who would verbally deny it. Familiar as will be these reflections, it seems nevertheless desirable to dwell upon them, that their truth may be clearly brought home. For it follows (and this is an important consequence) that if any premisses logically and necessarily result in such absolute scepticism they may be disproved by a reductio ad absurdum. This is so because absolute scepticism cannot be even believed (since to believe it would be ipso facto to deny it by asserting the certainty of uncertainty), and is absurd, and no reasoning which necessarily leads to absurdity can be valid in the eyes of those who, not being themselves absolute sceptics, are certain that utter absurdity and absolute truth are not one and the same.

The second preliminary assertion is as follows:

II. Propositions are not to be defended which cannot be even conceived to be seriously entertained by some one.

This assertion serves to discriminate between real and verbal doubt. There is, of course, nothing which The second cannot be called in question verbally. The exist- proposition.

ence of "self" has been declared to be a thing which may be doubted but not the existence of "thought." It is just as easy, however, to say, "I doubt whether thought exists," as to say, "I doubt whether I exist;" but it is as impossible for any one to believe that his existence is doubtful as to believe that the existence of thought is doubtful. The limits of rational discussion, then, we must insist, are facts which cannot be really doubted—are truths which no one can actually ignore. To attempt to go beyond such limits is to fall into mere puerility and verbiage. Merely verbal doubts are as trifling as endless. We have a right to demand that we should only be challenged by doubts which are really and truly entertained by those who propose them, or are regarded by them as at least possibly real-in fact, that our time should not be taken up by answering the ingenious cavils of merely pretended sceptics. Can we believe that any one of our opponents has any real and serious doubt as to his own true and objective personal existence and his own personal identity? Each may certainly be credited with a total absence of any such absurd dubitation, and this because no one out of Bedlam doubts really as to his own being and personal identity, however much he may amuse himself by professing to distrust such declarations of his consciousness and memory. Will any such opponent seriously affirm that he is not certain that he was not last year the Emperor of Russia, or the boiler of the Great Eastern, or that he is not absolutely sure that he has not actually been all the various people or things which have from time to time presented themselves to his imagination?

And here perhaps a protest may be permitted against a mode of representing thought which is eminently misleading. Messrs. Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer agree in representing that men are only conscious of a succession of feelings. Now, in limine, an objection may be made to the term "feeling" as the one generic name for all states of consciousness. It may be so because the word "feeling" is intimately associated in ordinary language with sensation. Thus to assert or

imply that all our states of consciousness are feelings, tends to insinuate a belief that we have no faculty but "sensation." This is not the precise meaning of the above-mentioned writers, but it is a meaning likely to be given to their words by very many, and it is therefore an abuse of language. To say that we have a feeling that two sides of a triangle are greater than the third side, is to use the word not only in a non-natural but in a misleading sense.

The third preliminary operation will stand thus:

III. Whatever can be distinctly conceived by the mind can be communicated to others by articulate speech.

At the end of a controversy with Agnostics they may turn round upon their opponents and deny the validity The third of any conclusions arrived at on the ground of the proposition. inadequacy of articulate speech to express their deepesttheir primary-conceptions and convictions. To avoid this denial, it is desirable to point out that unless Agnostics are prepared to admit the validity of "oral words" as used in their discussions and investigations, they should abstain altogether from such discussions. They should so abstain, since, unless the "spoken word" can be made to correspond in a practically sufficient manner with the thoughts conceived, there can be no communication of such thoughts, and every man is bound not to tax the time and attention of hearers or readers by arguments which he knows are necessarily absurd and futile, and by phrases and expressions which he is aware cannot but be empty and unmeaning-a necessarily resultless logomachy. It may be confidently affirmed that no sane man really believes that what he distinctly conceives he can in no way articulately convey to others with practical accuracy and sufficiency; but should any men profess to believe in such impotence of verbal expression, then they are clearly bound to abstain from controversy altogether, and not inflict on us expressions of opinion which are in the opinion of their very utterers, necessarily misleading, and verbal judgments

which are inevitably false-nay, avowed inanities. Of course it is open to any Agnostic to employ language for the purpose of showing that the use of language leads us inevitably to necessary contradictions; but the effect of such a demonstra-. tion, if it could be made, would be not to establish any positive system whatever, but to land us in utter and hopeless scepticism, and to invalidate every argument even of the Agnostic himself. Every writer, then, who professes seriously to dispute concerning metaphysical problems, thereby tacitly avows that his mental conceptions can be validly expressed by his spoken (or written) words. He shows by his invitation to discussion, not only that he believes himself to have attained philosophical conceptions which seem to him sound and true, but also that he believes himself capable of conveying those truths, by language, to the apprehensions of his fellow-men-since any one who invites to any inquiry is bound to have first satisfied himself that such inquiry can in fact be made. An argumentum ad hominem may then be well addressed to any Agnostic who objects to his own refutation on the ground of the necessary inadequacy of language.

of a leading Agnostic as to our knowledge of our own existence.

Having, then, noticed these three preliminary consideraThe teaching tions, we may proceed to test some of the utterances of prominent leaders of the philosophy of nescience on a point of the highest importance to us, namely, our own existence. Professor Huxley not long ago expressed himself as follows:-"Now, is our knowledge of anything we know or feel, more or less than a knowledge of states of consciousness? And our whole life is made up of such states. Some of these states we refer to a cause we call 'self;' others to a cause or causes which may be comprehended under the title 'not-self.' But neither of the existence of 'self,' nor of that of 'not-self,' have we, or can we by any possibility have, any such unquestionable and immediate certainty as we have of the states of consciousness which we consider to be their effects." They are "hypothetical assumptions

*Lay Sermons,' Descartes, p. 359.