Absolute scepticism results from distrust of memory.

memory be already confided in, but in every such instance. it must be confided in. Any person who would maintain the above fallacy must profess to place confidence in his present act of memory, because in past instances its truth has been experimentally confirmed, and he can only know that it has been so confirmed by trusting his present memory! Therefore, neither by experience nor in any other way can we prove the trustworthiness of our faculty of memory, which we know for certain without proof. For although our memory by no means vouches for the past with the same force in all cases, yet there are some past events of our lives which our present state of mind tells us we know with certainty. Some things we may know we have forgotten, other things we may not feel clear about, but as to some other things, memory makes them evident to us, as it doubtless makes evident to the reader of this passage that he did begin to read it, and that he was doing something else before he began to read it. Indeed, if we can be certain of nothing past, we cease thereby to be reasonable beings. If we cannot trust our faculty of memory, then all history becomes a mere present dream for us, as also does the whole of physical science. What experiments, what inductions can prove anything if, when we have made them, we cannot be sure such experiments were ever carried on or such inductions drawn? As has been pointed out a short time ago, even our reflex knowledge of our own existence and our own feelings must vanish, if we deny the trustworthiness of memory. Our absolute certainties as to our own past and as to our present experiences (beyond feelings actually being felt at the moment) rest, indeed, upon the same basis, and if we may trust, as we must trust, our reflective consciousness at all, we must also trust our faculty of memory, upon the veracity of which the very use of our reflective consciousness depends. Therefore, to distrust the faculty of memory is to fall necessarily into absolute scepticism, which was shown in the first chapter to be a very foolish state of mind, and a system which so refutes itself, and is so absurd as to be incapable even of being rationally stated. We are * See above, p 7.

therefore compelled to trust, and to practically admit the veracity of, our faculty of memory, even if disposed to verbally deny it. We are compelled to do so by the very constitution of our nature, and we are driven to do so because otherwise all knowledge, all rational speech, all reasoning, and, indeed, all consecutive thought, become impossible. But we do not accept and trust in our memory on account of these reasons, but because it carries with it its own evidence. With respect to the many matters about which we are absolutely certain, we feel spontaneously and without reflection the evident truth of our present knowledge of our own past, and reflection only serves to make that past more clearly, distinctly, and explicitly evident; just as it serves to bring out more clearly, distinctly, and explicitly that primary and direct knowledge of our own feelings and existence, which is implicitly contained in our perceptions.

tive and

As has been before pointed out, the natural, spontaneous The objectendency of the mind, especially in childhood and youth, subjective. is not to look inwards upon the mind itself but outwards upon surrounding objects, which objects make various impressions upon the mind of the person who regards them. That person himself is the subject of such actually present impressions which he is directly conscious of as his own present experience. All such direct, present feelings of him who is the subject of them, are spoken of and distinguished as "subjective "-they are states of the subject who feels. Everything which is not a present feeling or state of consciousness is, on the other hand, spoken of and distinguished as "objective." What is objective, then, is not a state of the subject who feels, but is to be understood as something external to his feelings. It is desirable that this consedistinction between what is "objective" and what is "sub-quences of jective" should be clearly comprehended, in order that we ess truthfulmay be better able to appreciate certain consequences which follow from a recognition of the trustworthiness of our faculty of memory. Whatever we feel, we feel by the help of our senses, and we can be directly conscious of no feelings except those which are being felt at the time we are conscious of them. Thus, all that is felt, and all that

memory's

we are immediately and directly conscious of, belongs to the category of what is subjective, and nothing is subjective which we are not thus conscious of. But our own continuous existence, though perceived with certainty, is not felt, and neither it nor our feelings are perceived as such with immediate, direct consciousness. They cannot be so perceived. They cannot be perceived except reflexly, because as we saw in the last chapter-they need for their distinct recognition the turning back of the mind upon itself, which thus considers its "continuous being," or "its feelings," or both, as the case may be, and holds them up to the mind's eye as objects upon which it looks. They thus belong to the category of what is objective. That they are but states of the mind which regards them does not prevent their being looked at as objects external to that mind, while it is in the act of regarding them, any more than the image seen by one looking at himself in a glass is any the less a thing different from him who looks, because all the time it is really but the reflection of himself which he sees. The reflections of the mind as perceived in direct cognition are present and "subjective," but as recognized by reflection they are things which are past, however recently past. They are thus made objects of contemplation by the mind, and are therefore "objective." Still more, then, must the persistent, continuous self, or ego, be "objective," since it never is, and never has been directly perceived, while a recognition of its duration during past time is an essential element of its being perceived at all. We recognize and know these things, as before said, only through memory, by the help of which we are enabled to unite the past with the present, and say, "I am." Now, these two words signify a great deal; they signify that he who utters them recognizes past acts as his own acts, and that a continuous unity (himself) has continued essentially unchanged through a greater or less number of more or less varied experiences. By asserting the trustworthiness of memory we affirm that our intellect has the power of knowing a certain objective existence, and an existence which is not, and cannot be, perceived by our senses, because the senses can only feel what is present

and can never feel what is past. The very fact of feeling anything shows, with absolute certainty, that the thing felt is present. But a very little thought about our faculty of memory shows that by its aid our intellect can perceive with certainty that which is not present-such as some past event of our lives-and that which is not, and never could be felt-namely, our own continuous being. But some one may say that our continuous being can be felt because our own body can be felt, and continuously felt for a considerable time, so that we are under no obligations to memory in recognizing our continuous existence. Our own body can, of course, be felt in different ways at once, and our experiences in feeling it can be indefinitely repeated or prolonged. But each time we feel it, we can but have the present feeling, and, apart from memory and reflex acts of the mind, we cannot know its existence as continuous and enduring. Our persistent body, once more, can easily be felt, but it can never be "felt" as enduring, although it can be "recognized" as enduring by the help of repeated sensations, when these are accompanied by acts of memory and of mental reflection. This power which memory possesses of lifting us, as it were, out of our present selves, and showing us a wide field of things external to our own minds, which things, but for memory, we could never recognize, is a very wonderful power. It is so wonderful that some persons feel tempted by its inexplicable character to doubt the veracity of their faculty of memory, or even to verbally deny it. But, as we have seen, they cannot do so without contradicting themselves, and committing intellectual suicide by falling into the fatuous system of general scepticism. The self-evident truth that our memory is trustworthy is a fact involved in, and absolutely necessary to, the full recognition of the first and most certain of all facts for us the fact of our own existence.

The certainty of these two preliminary facts being clearly seen, we may next proceed, in our quest for truth, to inquire about those supremely certain general truths or principles which were declared, towards the end of the first chapter, to be so fundamental that, without them, all advance in knowledge is absolutely impossible.

CHAPTER IV.

HOME TRUTHS.

The primary abstract general principle is the law of contradiction, which is self-evident and cannot be denied without involving absolute scepticism. Other self-evident abstract general principles are the axiom about the equality of things equal to a third thing, and the law of causation.

First general principle, the law of contradiction-Difficulties in its acceptation-A mistaken principle proposed in place of it-Denial of the law involves absolute scepticism-An objection-What produces a feeling of uncertainty about the law-Knowledge of universal truths not exceptionally wonderful-Second general principle, an axiom about equality—A fallacious objection—Third general principle, the law of causation—The idea of “power” or “force”—An objection and its answer.

WE have now advanced two distinct preliminary steps in our pursuit of truth; for we have recognized the certainty of two fundamental, self-evident facts, namely, the facts of our own existence, and of memory's trustworthiness. But in our first chapter it was pointed out* that, besides self-evident facts, a perception of two other orders of self-evident truths must lie at the root of all certainty. One of these two orders of truths concerned the force and validity of certain arguments. We shall consider those arguments in the next chapter. The other order of self-evident truths consisted of general, abstract principles or laws, and it is to the consideration of two or three of such laws that we must now address ourselves. It is plain, indeed, that we cannot build up a temple of truth with See above, p. 12.