maintain the unity of self to be more than an illusive appearance, when self and not-self, as known to consciousness, are, on your own hypothesis, confessedly only modifications of the same percipient subject? If, on your doctrine, consciousness can split what you hold to be one and indivisible into two, not only different but opposed, existences, what absurdity is there, on mine, that consciousness should exhibit as phænomenally one, what we both hold to be really manifold? If you give the lie to consciousness in favor of your hypothesis, you can have no reasonable objection that I should give it the lie in favor of mine. If you can maintain that not-self is only an illusive phænomenon, — being, in fact, only self in disguise; I may also maintain, a contra, that self itself is only an illusive phænomenon, and that the apparent unity of the ego is only the result of an organic harmony of action between the particles of matter.

The absolute and universal veracity of consciousness must be maintained.

From these examples, the truth of the position I maintain is manifest, that a fact of consciousness can only be rejected on the supposition of falsity, and that, the falsity of one fact of consciousness being admitted, the truth of no other fact of consciousness can be maintained. The legal brocard, Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, is a rule not more applicable to other witnesses than to consciousness. Thus, every system of philosophy which implies the negation of any fact of consciousness, is not only necessarily unable, without self-contradiction, to establish its own truth by any appeal to consciousness; it is also unable, without self-contradiction, to appeal to consciousness against the falsehood of any other system. If the absolute and universal veracity of consciousness be once surrendered, every system is equally true, or rather all are equally false; philosophy is impossible, for it has now no instrument by which truth can be discovered, no standard by which it can be tried; the root of our nature is a lie. But though it is thus manifestly the common interest of every scheme of philosophy to preserve intact the integrity of consciousness, almost every scheme of philosophy is only another mode in which this integrity has been violated. If, therefore, I am able to prove the fact of this various violation, and to show that the facts of consciousness have never, or hardly ever, been fairly evolved, it will follow, as I said, that no reproach can be justly addressed to consciousness as an ill-informed, or vacillating, or perfidious witness, but to those only who were too proud, or too negligent, to accept its testimony, to employ its materials, and to obey its laws. And on this suppo

sition, so far should we be from despairing of the future advance of philosophy from the experience of its past wanderings, that we ought, on the contrary, to anticipate for it a steady progress, the moment that philosophers can be persuaded to look to consciousness, and to consciousness alone, for their materials and their rules.

LECTURE XVI.

CONSCIOUSNESS, — VIOLATIONS OF ITS AUTHORITY.

Consciousness, the first and generative principle of Philosophy.

On the principle, which no one has yet been found bold enough formally to deny, and which, indeed, requires only to be understood to be acknowledged, namely, that as all philosophy is evolved from consciousness, so, on the truth of consciousness, the possibility of all philosophy is dependent, it is manifest, at once and without further reasoning, that no philosophical theory can pretend to truth except that single theory which comprehends and develops the fact of consciousness on which it founds, without retrenchment, distortion, or addition. Were a philosophical system to pretend that it culls out all that is correct in a fact of consciousness, and rejects only what is erroneous, what would be the inevitable result? In the first place, this system admits, and must admit, that it is wholly dependent on consciousness for its constituent elements, and for the rules by which these are selected and arranged, in short, that it is wholly dependent on consciousness for its knowledge of true and false. But, in the second place, it pretends to select a part, and to reject a part, of a fact given and guaranteed by consciousness. Now, by what criterion, by what standard, can it discriminate the true from the false in this fact? This criterion must be either consciousness itself, or an instrument different from consciousness. If it be an instrument different from consciousness, what is it? No such instrument has ever yet been named - has ever yet been heard of. If it exist, and if it enable us to criticize the data of consciousness, it must be a higher source of knowledge than consciousness, and thus it will replace consciousness as the first and generative principle of philosophy. But of any principle of this character, different from consciousness, philosophy is yet in ignorance. It remains unenounced and unknown. It may therefore, be safely assumed not to be. The standard, therefore, by which any philosophical theory can profess

to regulate its choice among the elements of any fact of consciousness, must be consciousness itself. Now, mark the dilemma. The theory makes consciousness the discriminator between what is true and what is false in its own testimony. But if consciousness be assumed to be a mendacious witness in certain parts of its evidence, how can it be presumed a veracious witness in others? This it cannot be. It must be held as false in all, if false in any; and the philosophical theory which starts from this hypothesis, starts from a negation of itself in the negation of philosophy in general. Again, on the hypothesis that part of the deliverance of consciousness is true, part false, how can consciousness enable us to distinguish these? This has never yet been shown; it is, in fact, inconceivable. But, further, how is it discovered that any part of a datum of consciousness is false, another true? This can only be done if the datum involve a contradiction. But if the facts of consciousness be contradictory, then is consciousness a principle of falsehood; and the greatest of conceivable follies would be an attempt to employ such a principle in the discovery of truth. And such an act of folly is every philosophical theory which, departing from an admission that the data of consciousness are false, would still pretend to build out of them a system of truth. But, on the other hand, if the data of consciousness are not contradictory, and consciousness, therefore, not a self-convicted deceiver, how is the unapparent falsehood of its evidence to be evinced? This is manifestly impossible; for such falsehood is not to be presumed; and, we have previously seen, there is no higher principle by which the testimony of consciousness can be canvassed and redargued. Consciousness, therefore, is to be presumed veracious; a philosophical theory which accepts one part of the harmonious data of consciousness and rejects another, is manifestly a mere caprice, a chimera not worthy of consideration, far less of articulate disproof. It is ab initio null.

I have been anxious thus again to inculcate upon you this view in regard to the relation of Philosophy to Consciousness, because it contains a preliminary refutation of all those proud and wayward systems which, though they can only pretend to represent the truth inasmuch as they fully and fairly develop the revelations vouchsafed to us through consciousness, still do, one and all of them, depart from a false or partial acceptance of these revelations themselves; and because it affords a clear and simple criterion of certainty in our own attempts at philosophical construction. If it be correct, it sweeps away at once a world of metaphysical speculation; and if it curtail the dominions of human reason, it firmly establishes our authority over what remains.

Violations of the authority of consciousness illustrated.

In order still further to evince to you the importance of the precept (namely, that we must look to consciousness and to consciousness alone for the materials and rules of philosophy), and to show articulately how all the variations of philosophy have been determined by its neglect, I will take those facts of consciousness which lie at the very root of philosophy, and with which, consequently, all philosophical systems are necessarily and primarily conversant; and point out how, besides the one true doctrine which accepts and simply states the fact as given, there are always as many various actual theories as there are various possible modes of distorting or mutilating this fact. I shall commence with that great fact to which I have already alluded,

The Duality of Consciousness.

that

we are immediately conscious in perception of an ego and a non-ego, known together, and known in contrast to each other. This is the fact of the Duality of Consciousness. It is clear and manifest. When I concentrate my attention in the simplest act of perception, I return from my observation with the most irresistible conviction of two facts, or rather two branches of the same fact; - that I am, - and that something different from me exists. In this act, I am conscious of myself as the perceiving subject, and of an external reality as the object perceived; and I am conscious of both existences in the same indivisible moment of intuition. The knowledge of the subject does not precede, nor follow, the knowledge of the object, neither determines, neither is determined by, the other. Such is the fact of perception revealed in consciousness, and as it determines mankind in general in their almost equal assurance of the reality of an external world, as of the existence of their own minds. Consciousness declares our knowledge of material qualities to be intuitive or immediate, — not representative or mediate. Nor is the fact, as given, denied even by those who disallow its truth. So clear is the deliverance, that even the philosophers who reject an intuitive perception, find it impossible not to admit, that their doctrine stands decidedly opposed to the voice of consciousness, to the natural convictions of mankind. I may give you some examples of the admission of this fact, which it is of the utmost importance to place beyond the possibility of doubt. I quote, of course, only from those philosophers whose systems are in contradiction of the testimony of consciousness, which they are forced to admit. I might quote to you confessions to this effect from Descartes, De Passion

The fact of the testimony of consciousness in Perception allowed by those who deuy its truth.