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prior ones,—What is the nature of the intuitions? and what the precise object looked at?—questions which will be settled as we examine the intuitions in order. The question as to what saith the intuition is not the same as the question as to whether the intuition should be trusted. It is expedient to determine precisely what the witness says, before we inquire whether he does or does not speak the truth; and so we adjourn this last question to the close of our survey.

In questioning the witness it will be necessary, when a testimony is given in favour of a reality independent of the contemplative mind, to determine very precisely what is the sort of reality. In particular the question should be put, Is the attestation in behalf of an independent thing, or merely of the quality of a thing, or of the relation between one thing and another, or what else? For example, self-consciousness seems to testify in behalf of self as an individual existence, and sense-perception seems to assert of bodily objects that they have a separate being; but when the mind contemplates thinking, or solidity, or potency, though it undoubtedly affirms of them that they are real, it does not look on them as separate entities, as this paper or as this book is. The mind declares that moral excellence is a reality, and not a figment, but it does not attribute the same sort of reality to it as it does to the man who possesses moral excellence. The mind seems to me to declare that there is a reality in space and time, but we may land ourselves in innumerable difficulties if we make rash assertions as to the kind of reality we give them. Unless we draw such distinctions we may altogether misunderstand the testimony given, and then be tempted to charge the blunders which our own hastiness has committed on our mental constitution. And yet these are distinctions which are altogether lost sight of by those who juggle with the phrases “objective" and "subjective.” Even in our most subjective exercises, as when the mind is thinking of one of its own states, there is always an object known, namely, self; and when we say that such a thing has an objective existence, we may mean a great many different things which should be carefully distinguished.1

On Subjective and Objective, see Part п. Book 1. Chap. ii. sect. vi. Supplementary.

The caning and importance of these cautions may best be comprehended by giving examples of the evil which has arisen from neglecting them. Kant laboured to determine more critically than had been done before the nature of the mind's convictions regarding space, time, and causation, and he stood up resolutely for their reality; but then it was a merely subjective reality, a reality in the mind. Time and space are represented by him as forms under which we cognize all phenomena presented to the senses, and cause and effect is a category under which events are arranged by the understanding. Now, in examining this theory, I start with inquiring, What do our native convictions say in regard to these subjects? Are they satisfied when it is said that time and space and causation have no existence except in the mind? They seem to me, on the contrary, to declare that time and space have a reality out of the mind, and independent of the mind, quite as much as the phenomena which we discover in space and time, and that cause and effect have an existence quite as much as the events which they connect. No doubt 1 may deny the trustworthiness of my intuitive convictions as attesting the existence of external being, but immediately after, some one, proceeding a step further in the same direction, will deny the veracity of all their other testimonies, till we are landed in a scepticism which sets aside the reality of things, subjective as well as objective.

This is an illustration of evil arising from a refusal to listen to our convictions. Mistakes have also arisen from neglecting the distinctions between the kinds of testimony. M. Cousin finds fault, very properly, with Kant for not allowing an objective existence to substance and causation and other truths attested by reason. But then he does not institute a patient inquiry into the nature of the reality which the mind gives to such things as substance and cause and moral good, and he argues as if these must have the same sort of reality as the individual soul has, or as an individual acting causally has, or as a good man has; and he has thus been led to argue at once, from our idea of objective substance to God as absolute substance, from creature effect to God as the supreme Cause, and from the idea of moral good to the existence of a good God, a mode of argument which I cannot but regard as inconclu

sive and highly unsatisfactory, the more so as it operates, with other considerations, to lead him to represent God as a cause which must create.1

By steadily adhering to this method of induction, and attending to such cautions, we may surely hope to be able to ascertain something as to the original principles of the mind, and determine likewise what are the truths guaranteed by them; and this, I apprehend, is the main work which metaphysics should attempt.

In regard to systems not built upon inductive psychological proof, I confess that to me they are all very much alike; they differ only in respect of the intellectual temperament of the individual constructing them, or the influences under which he has been nurtured. The man of genius, like Schelling, will create an ingenious theory, beautiful as the golden locks of the setting sun; the man of vigourous intellect, like Hegel, will erect a fabric which looks as coherent as a palace of ice but until they can be shown to be founded on the inherent principles of the mind, or to be built up of materials thence derived, I wrap myself up in philosophic doubt, as not being sure whether they may not disappear while I am gazing on them.

Nor am I to be seduced into an admiration of such imposing systems by the plea often urged in their behalf, that they furnish a gymnasium for the exercise of the intellect. I acknowledge that one of the very highest advantages of study of every description is to be found in the vigour imparted to the mind which engages in it. But whatever may have been the difficulty of finding suitable pursuits in the days of the Schoolmen, it is not necessary now to resort to fruitless a priori speculation, in order to have an arena in which to exercise the intellect. Nay, I am convinced that when the

1 See a summary of his admirable review of Kant, Prem. Sér. tom. v. leg. viii. In Prem. Sér. tom. ii. leç. vii. viii. xiv. xxii., he labours to show that the ideas of the true, the beautiful, the good, imply the existence of a God who is the true, the beautiful, the good; and in Deux. Sér. tom. i. leç. iv. v., that the finite implies the infinite, that the effect implies a cause, and the cause an effect. In these last lectures he had spoken of God as necessarily creating. In Fragments Philosophiques, Aver. de la trois. éd., he withdraws the language, "necessity of creation," as not sufficiently reverent towards the Creator; but he adheres to the meaning, "Or en Dieu surtout la force est adéquate à la substance, et la force divine est toujours en acte; Dieu est donc essentiellement actif et créateur."

research conducts to no solid results, it will weary the mind without strengthening it; the effort will be like that of one who beateth the air, and activity will always be followed by exhaustion, by dissatisfaction, and an unwillingness to make further exertion. Labour, it is true, is its own reward; but if there be no other reward, there will be the want of the needful incentive. The vigour imparted is only one of the incidental effects which follow when work is undertaken in the hope of securing substantial fruits. Nor is it to be forgotten that these speculations, though unproductive of good, are not fruitless of evil. In the struggles thus engendered there are other powers of the mind tried as well as the understanding; there are often sad agonizings of the feelings, of the faith, and indeed of the whole soul, which feels as if the foundation on which it previously stood had been removed and none other supplied, and as if it had in consequence to sink for ever; or as if it were doomed to move for ever onward without reaching a termination, while all retreat has been cut off behind. In these wrestlings I fear that many wounds are inflicted, which continue long to rankle and often terminate in something worse than the dissolution of the bodily organism, for they end in tho loss of faith and of peace, in cases in which they do not issue in immorality, in scepticism, or in blasphemy. Any sentiment of admiration which might be excited by the display of mental power and learning on the part of the speculators, is counteracted in my mind by more painful associations than the Quaker poet connected with the sound of the drum :

"I hate that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round and round and round;
To me it talks of ravaged plains,
And burning towns and ruined swains.
And mangled limbs and dying groans,
And widows' tears and orphans' moans,
And all that Misery's hand bestows

To nill the catalogue of human woes."

These exercises, I suspect, resemble not so much those of the gymnasium, as of the ancient gladiatorial shows, in which no doubt there were many brilliant feats performed, but in which also members were mutilated, and the heart's-blood of many a brave

man shed. I fear that in not a few cases generous and courageous youths have entered the lists, to lose in the contest all creed, all religious, and in some cases, all moral principles, and with these all peace and all stability :—

"I see before me the gladiator lie,

He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony ;
And his drooped head sinks gradually low :
And through his side the last drops ebbing slow
From the big gash, fall heavy one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower. And now
The arena swims around him—he is gone!”

SECT. V.—WHAT EXPLANATION CAN BE GIVEN OF THE INTUITIONS OF

THE MIND?

As we are about forthwith to ask the Intuitions to give an account of themselves, it may be as well to have it settled what sort of information we may expect to draw from them.

Our intuitions are at once the clearest and the darkest objects which the mind can contemplate; constituting the intellectual sense by which we get all our original knowledge, it is found to be painful to turn this eye back upon itself. Truths seen by intuitions shine in their own light, like the luminary of day, and any attempt to make them clearer is like "going out with a taper to see the sun," and yet when we would look steadily on them our eye is apt to be blenched. In another respect too they are like the sun—they shine the brightest when we get the first glance at them, and if we continue to gaze, they appear dim and dark to our oppressed vision. And yet it is only by reflexly looking on them as they shine, that we can expect to be able to determine their form and dimensions.

There are senses in which they cannot, there are senses in which they can, be explained.

I.—1. They cannot be explained in the sense of being rendered intelligible to any one naturally without them. He who is born blind cannot be made to see colors by help of a microscope or telescope, nor could the most vivid description communicate any idea of them. In like manner, if there were a human being without the intuitions, he could not be made to understand the objects

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