while a third class, such as the Scottish school which has sprung from Reid, admit both into their system, but without explaining their connexion. To me it appears that the intuitive or necessary principles of the mind are just the fundamental principles or regulative laws of the faculties. But without dwelling on this at present, it is enough to announce that the necessary principles, like the faculties of the mind, do not come immediately under the cognizance of consciousness. The individual actings do indeed fall directly under reflection or the internal sense. Thus we are conscious that the mind, on discovering a given effect, judges and decides that it must have a cause, and looks for a cause; but it has not mean while before it the general principle that every effect has a cause, or the principle of causation expressly formalized. Being convinced that we exist, we cannot be made to believe that we do not exist; but this is not because we have consciously before us the principle of contradiction, "that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time." It will be shown forthwith that we arrive reflexly at a knowledge of the intuitive principle, which operates spontaneously, by the observation and generalization of its individual acts or energies. My present purpose is gained if it is shown that such metaphysical principles as causation and contradiction are not directly before consciousness as rules, laws, or principles.

CHAPTER II.

POSITIVE PROPOSITIONS.

SECT. I.-THERE ARE INTUITIVE PRINCIPLES OPERATING IN THE MIND.

I Do not propose to bring a full or satisfactory proof of this assertion in this short section; the evidence will be found in Part Second, in which our intuitive convictions are unfolded and discussed in detail. All that I profess to do at this stage is, to announce and explain certain positions which I hope to establish as we proceed, and answer some preliminary objections which are likely to occur to the English reader. To illustrate my meaning I must refer to certain convictions which I suppose to be intuitive, such as those regarding Space and Time, Substance, Quality, Cause and Effect, and Moral Good; all of these will be treated in detail in subsequent parts of the volume.

(1.) The first position I would lay down is, that the mind must have something native or innate. The word "innate" is apt to be obnoxious to English ears; it is associated with views which Locke is supposed to have set aside for ever; and the revival of it will appear to some like the raising of a carcass from the grave to which it had been happily consigned. I have no partiality for a phrase which has been employed to set forth doctrines which it will be one object of this Work to undermine. To the phrase "innate ideas" I take strong objections, which will come out as we advance. To the term "innate," if it were employed to qualify the proper noun, I see no objections; but if any are offended with it, the word "native" will serve our purpose as well. All that either phrase denotes is, that there is something-at present I do not say what-in man's soul at the time it is born.

In this respect it is like the bodily substances which fall under our notice. These bodies are something and have something. This piece of iron which I hold in my hand is not a nonentity: it is an existence; it occupies space; it resists pressure; it has a colour. The soul of man is also an existence: it knows; it understands; it grieves; it rejoices. The capacity which it has of doing so may be described as native and original.

In this respect it is like the bodily frame when it comes forth from the womb. That body is not all which it is afterwards to become. Yet it is not, even at this early stage, a nonentity; it is not a nothing about to grow into something. Already that frame has a structure, a form, and most wondrous properties. And just as little is the soul, when it awakes to consciousness, a nonentity; even at this point, it is an existence, a something, and is possessed of something which may be called innate or connate.

Even on the supposition that it is like a surface of wax or a sheet of white paper, ready to receive whatever is impressed or written on it, the soul must have something inborn. If it has but a power of impressibility, it has in this something innate. The very wax and paper, in the inadequate illustration referred to, have capabilities, the capacity of taking something on them, and retaining it. But such comparisons have all a misleading tendency. Surely the mind has something more than a mere receptivity. It is not a mere surface, on which matter may reflect itself as on a mirror our consciousness testifies that, in comparison with matter, it is active; that it has an original, and an originating potency.

(2.) A second position may be maintained; that this something has rules, laws, or properties. Matter, with all its endowments, inorganic and organic, is regulated by laws which it is the office of physical and physiological science to discover. All the powers or properties of material substance have rules of action; for example, gravitation and chemical affinity have appointed modes of operation which can be expressed in quantitative proportions. That mind also has properties, is shown by its action; and surely these properties do not act capriciously or lawlessly. There are rules involved in the very constitution of its active properties, and these are not beyond the possibility of being discovered and expressed.

The senses indeed cannot detect them, but they may be found out by internal observation. It is true that this law cannot be discovered immediately by consciousness, any more than the law of gravitation can be perceived by the eye. But the operations of the mental properties are under the observation of consciousness just as those of gravitation are under the senses; and by careful observation, analysis, and generalization, we may from the acts reach the laws of the acts. He who has reached the exact expres→sion of our mental properties, is in possession of a law which is native or innate.

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(3.) As a third position, it is capable of being established that → the mind has original perceptions, which may be described as intuitive. Every one will acknowledge that it has perceptions through the senses, and I shall endeavour to show, as we advance, that there are perceptions of the understanding and of the moral faculty: › some of these perceptions are, no doubt, secondary and derivative, but the secondary imply primary perceptions, and the derivative original ones. Thus perception of distance by the eye may be derivative; but it implies an original perception, by the eye, of a surface. It is by a process of reasoning that I know that the square of the hypothenuse of the right-angled triangle is equal to the square of the other two sides: but this reasoning proceeds on certain axiomatic truths whose certainty is seen at once, as that "if equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal." Let it be observed that we are now in a region in which are loftier powers than those possessed by inert matter; still these higher have rules as well as the lower or material properties. The original perceptions by sense, or reason, or moral power, all have their laws, which it should be the business of psychology or of metaphysics to discover and determine. These perceptions may be represented as intuitions, inasmuch as they look immediately on the object or truth. The rules or laws which they obey may be described as intuitive; and it is the office of mental science to discover them by a process of introspection, abstraction, and comparison.

(4.) It is possible to defend a fourth position, that the mind can discover necessary and universal truth. Not that I propose to substantiate this statement at this stage of our inquiries, still I

may announce it, and show how it is not impossible to establish it. The mind declares that these two straight lines before it do not enclose a space. It does more it declares of every other two straight lines conceived, that they cannot enclose a space. It says of these two straight lines, that if they proceed an inch without being nearer each other, that they will proceed an ell, a mile, or a myriad of miles, without being nearer; nay, it declares of all such parallel lines, that they may be prolonged for ever without meeting. These are specimens of a large class of truths, which the mind perceives to be true, and necessarily true. There are logical truths such as that whatever is predicated of a class may be predicated of all the members of the class; and moral truths-such as that sin is deserving of reprobation, which are also necessary and universal. But if the mind may-as I maintain that it can and does rise to the discovery of such truths, it must be by native laws, the expression of which will give us metaphysical science, just as the expression of the laws which material phenomena obey gives us physical science.

But it will be said that we discover all this by experience. We are not at this stage of inquiry in circumstances to have the relation between intuition and experience definitely pointed out. But

(5.) It may be stated, as a fifth position, that the very acquisition of experience implies native laws or principles. So far from experience being able to account for innate principles, innate principles are required to account for the treasures of experience. For how is it that man is enabled to gather experience? How is he different in this respect from the stock or the stone, from the vegetable or the brute, which can acquire no experience, at least no such experience? Plainly because he is endowed with capacities for this end; and these faculties must have some law or principle on which they proceed. From the known man can discover the unknown, from the past he can anticipate the future; and when he does so, he must proceed on some principle which is capable of exposition, and which ought to be expressed. And if man be capable, as I maintain he is, of reaching necessary and universal truth, he must proceed on principles which cannot be derived from experience. Twenty times have we tried, and found that two straight lines do