rational choice, as he has no duty, but to reason out his doubts to the end: to seek to escape them by diverting his attention, or to obscure them by calling up a cloud of emotion, is not only useless but blameworthy. As it is for an individual so is it for a people. And if, as in England in the present day, we see a generation restlessly seeking on all sides, in a night of doubt, for the first glimmerings of a coming dawn, surely hearty sympathy and ready aid are called for in favour of men who show by such restlessness and questioning how they are seeking to gain a knowledge of truth which was at least never lost through any act or deed of theirs.

effect of the

flict of

Now at the present time Englishmen are again and again called upon to treat as open questions the very first Bewildering principles of all reasoning, fundamental truths upon present conwhich the whole fabric of science reposes. And as opinion. but a small minority of the lecture-hearing, magazine-reading public can be supposed to have seriously taken up the study of philosophy, it follows that a certain number will fail to distinguish accurately between a healthy and an unhealthy scepticism. Not being accustomed to sound the depths of their own minds, and puzzled by the paradoxes of the sophists who now and again address them, some lose their hold upon all certainty and fall into a state of general doubt which is so undefined that it does not formulate itself in distinct propositions. Hence we too often encounter a vague and hazy scepticism, producing a languid and otiose state of mind which is, indeed, a symptom of incipient intellectual paralysis.

of stimulat

rough in

But since our object is to seek for certain positive truth, and to build up logically on such certain basis, it is Expediency needful to rouse attention, as far as may be, to this ing a thoenfeebling disease—a mental falling-sickness. In quiry. the presence of this evil it is surely well to try and drive such loiterers along the philosophic road, and to force on them an earnest and resolute questioning of themselves, so that they may know clearly that they do know what they know, and that they may not be persuaded unawares

out of their rational birthright. It is, of course, important that men should not be permitted to build upon a fancied knowledge which has not enough solidity to sustain the philosophical edifice; but it is certainly no less important that men should not be led to follow unsuspectingly an ignis fatuus till it plunges them into a quagmire of “universal doubt." To exaggerate our powers is dangerous, but to be possessed by a feeling of our utter impotence is fatal.

Now there is a school of philosophy (by courtesy so called) The Agnostic of considerable popularity, which is called by its philosophy. opponents the "philosophy of nescience"-a name, however, which its supporters would hardly disclaim. They would hardly disclaim it because some of them willingly style themselves "Agnostics," or "know-nothings;" meaning thereby that they know and can know nothing but appearances, and that nothing whatever can be really and absolutely known. Yet, very irrationally these know-nothings or Agnostics at the same time very confidently affirm that they, by their ignorance, absolutely and infallibly know that the healthy common sense of mankind has gone all wrong, and, what is more extraordinary still, that the greatest philosophers have perversely joined in accepting the commonsense delusions of the vulgar, and gone wrong too. Such philosophers have, indeed, agreed with the rest of mankind in affirming the certainty of their own continued existence and that of their fellow-men, together with an external world, the shape, number, and extent of the parts of which they declare they can really and absolutely know, in so far as such parts can be brought under the observation of their senses.

The Agnostics form a section of that school (including Hamilton, Mansel, Mill, Lewes, Spencer, Huxley, and Bain) which asserts the relativity—i.e., the merely phenomenal character-of all our knowledge.

But every philosophy, every system of knowledge, must start Every philo- with the assumption (implied or expressed) that something is really "knowable "-that something is

sophy of nescience stultifies itself.

66

absolutely true;" and by this Agnostic school it is

evidently taught that the doctrine of the "relativity of all our knowledge" is a doctrine which is really and absolutely true. But if nothing that we can know corresponds with reality, if nothing we can assert has a more than relative or phenomenal value, this character must also appertain to the doctrine of the relativity of all our knowledge. Either this system of philosophy itself is relative and phenomenal only, or it is absolutely and objectively true. But it must be merely phenomenal if everything known is merely phenomenal. Its value, then, can be only relative and phenomenal; that is, it has no absolute value, does not correspond with objective reality, and is therefore false. But if it is false that our knowledge is only relative, then some of our knowledge must be absolute; but this negatives the fundamental position of the whole philosophy. Any philosophy, then, which starts with the assertion that all our knowledge is merely phenomenal refutes itself, and is necessarily suicidal. Every assertor of such a philosophy must be in the position of a man who saws across the branch of a tree, on which he actually sits, at a point between himself and the trunk. If he would save himself he must refrain from destroying that which alone sustains him in his elevated position.

directly en

Waiving, however, this objection, it is proposed to examine here some of the assertions of the know-nothing Yet is to be philosophy, with a view of testing the validity of countered. its fundamental assertions and seeing how far some of its so-called "explanations" are really explanatory or instructive. This examination, however, is not undertaken with the barren purpose of refuting an irrational brain-puzzle, but with the hope and intention of bringing out clearly a primary fact of consciousness in its most important bearings, and so establishing a good starting-point for our whole treatise-a foundation revealed to us by the study of nature as it exists in us, in our own mind.

Before, however, consenting to enter the arena with the Agnostics, it will be well to notice shortly three preliminary

considerations in order to maintain three propositions, assent

of admitting

On condition to which must be a sine quâ non to further discussion, as without such assent discussion would be an aimless and futile waste of time.

three preliminary propositions.

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 truth contained in this assertion serves to clear away The first pro- 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 distinction 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 opponent 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.