review, it may not at first appear to you, how essential the truths of
intuition are to those very truths which are usually opposed to them.
But that they are thus essential, a very little attention will be
sufficient to show you.
All belief, it is evident, must be either _direct_ or _indirect_. It is
direct, when a proposition, without regard to any former proposition
expressed or understood, is admitted as soon as it is expressed in
words, or as soon as it rises silently in the mind. Such are all the
order of truths, which have been denominated, on this account, first
truths. The belief is indirect, when the force of the proposition,
to which assent is given, is admitted only in consequence of the
previous admission of some former proposition, with which it is
felt to be intimately connected; and the statement in words, or the
internal developement of these relative propositions in the order
in which their relation to the primary proposition is felt, is all
that constitutes _reasoning_. The indirect belief which attends the
result of reasoning, even in the proudest demonstration, is thus
only another form of some first truth, which was believed directly
and independently of reasoning; and, without this primary intuitive
assent, the demonstration itself, in all its beautiful precision and
regularity, would be as powerless and futile as the most incoherent
verbal wrangling.
Without some principles of immediate belief, then, it is manifest,
that we could have no belief whatever; for we believe one proposition,
because we discover its relation to some other proposition, which is
itself, perhaps, related, in like manner, to some other proposition
formerly admitted, but which, carried back as far as it may, through
the longest series of ratiocination, must ultimately come to some
primary proposition, which we admit from the evidence contained in
itself, or, to speak more accurately, which we believe from the mere
impossibility of disbelieving it. All reasoning, then, the most
sceptical, be it remarked, as well as the most dogmatical, must
proceed on some principles, which are taken for granted, not because
we infer them by logical deduction, for this very inference must then
itself be founded on some other principle assumed without proof; but
because the admission of these first principles is a necessary part
of our intellectual constitution. The ridicule, therefore, with which
Dr Priestley and some other English metaphysicians, were disposed to
regard the decision of philosophical questions, on certain ultimate
principles of common sense, was surely, at least in its wide degree
of extension, misplaced; though the phrase _common sense_, it will
be admitted, was not the happiest that could have been chosen. The
controversy, indeed, was truly a verbal and insignificant one, unless
as far as it had reference to the unnecessary multiplication of these
principles, by the philosophers of this part of the island whom Dr
Priestley opposed; since, if traced to their ultimate evidence, it
could have been only from some one or more of the principles of common
sense, at least from those primary universal intuitions of direct
belief, which were all that Dr Reid and his friends meant to denote
by the term, that the very reasonings employed against them derived
even the slightest semblance of force. An argument that rejects not
the phrase common sense only, which is of little consequence, but
also what the phrase was intended, by its authors, to imply, is an
argument confessedly founded upon nothing; which, therefore, as wholly
unfounded, requires no answer, and which, at any rate, it would be
vain to attempt to answer, because the answer, if it proceed on any
ground whatever, must begin with assuming what the argument rejects, as
inadmissible.
All reasoning, then, I repeat, whether sceptical or dogmatical, must
take for granted, as its primary evidence, the truth of certain
propositions, admitted _intuitively_, and independently of the
reasoning, which follows, but cannot precede, the perception of
their truth; and hence, as we cannot suppose that the subsequent
ratiocination, though it may afford room for errors in the process,
can at all add evidence to these primary truths; which, as directly
believed, are themselves the ultimate evidence of each successive
proposition, down to the last result of the longest argument; we must
admit that our identity, if it be felt by us intuitively, and felt
universally, immediately, irresistibly, is founded on the very same
authority as the most exact logical demonstration, with this additional
advantage, that it is not subject to those possibilities of error in
the steps of the demonstration, from which no long series of reasoning
can be exempt.
So little accustomed are we, however, to think of this primary
fundamental evidence of every reasoning, while we give our whole
attention to the consecutive propositions which derive from it their
force, that we learn, in this manner, to consider truth and reasoning
as necessarily connected, and to regard the assertion of truths that
do not flow from reasoning, as the assertion of something which it
would be equally unworthy of philosophy to assert or to admit; though
every assertion and every admission, which the profoundest reasoner can
make, must, as we have seen, involve the direct or indirect statement
of some truth of this kind. Nor is it wonderful that we should thus
think more of the reasoning itself, than of the foundation of the
reasoning; since the _first truths_, which give force to reasoning
but require no reasoning to establish them, must necessarily be of a
kind which all admit, and which, therefore, as always believed by us,
and undisputed by others, have excited no interest in discussion, and
have never seemed to add to our stock of knowledge, like the results
of reasoning, which have added to it truth after truth. Yet that they
are thus uninteresting to us, is the effect only of their primary,
and universal, and permanent force. They are the only truths, in
short, which every one admits; and they seem to us unworthy of being
maintained as truths, merely because they are the only truths which are
so irresistible in evidence, as to preclude the possibility of a denial.
It is not as the primary evidence of all our processes of reasoning,
however, that they are chiefly valuable. Every action of our lives is
an exemplification of some one or other of these truths, as practically
felt by us. Why do we believe, that what we remember truly took place,
and that the course of nature will be in future such as we have already
observed it? Without the belief of these physical truths, we could not
exist a day, and yet there is no _reasoning_ from which they can be
inferred.
These principles of intuitive belief, so necessary for our very
existence, and too important, therefore, to be left to the casual
discovery of reason, are, as it were, an internal never-ceasing
voice from the Creator and Preserver of our being. The reasonings
of men, admitted by some, and denied by others, have over us but a
feeble power, which resembles the general frailty of man himself.
These internal revelations from on high, however, are omnipotent
like their Author. It is _impossible_ for us to doubt them, because
to _disbelieve_ them would be to deny what our very constitution was
formed to admit. Even the Atheist himself, therefore, if, indeed,
there be one who truly rejects a Creator and Ruler of the universe,
is thus every moment in which he adapts his conduct implicitly, and
without reasoning, to these directions of the Wisdom that formed him,
_obeying_, with most exact subserviency, that very _Voice_ which he is
professing to question or to deride.
That the assertion of principles of intuitive belief, independent of
reasoning, may be carried to an extravagant and ridiculous length,--as,
indeed, seems to me to have been the case in the works of Dr Reid, and
some other Scotch philosophers, his contemporaries and friends,--no one
can deny; nor that the unnecessary multiplication of these would be
in the highest degree injurious to sound philosophy,--both as leading
us to form false views of the nature of the mind, in ascribing to it
principles which are no part of its constitution, and, still more, as
checking the general vigour of our philosophic inquiry, by seducing us
into the habit of acquiescing too soon, in the easy and indolent faith,
that it is unnecessary for us to proceed farther, as if we had already
advanced as far as our faculties permit. It is the more unfortunate,
because our very avidity for knowledge, which is only another name
for that philosophic curiosity in which inquiry originates, is itself
favourable to this too easy acquiescence; tending, consequently, by
a sort of double influence, to repress the very speculation to which
it gave rise. This it does, by rendering the suspense of ungratified
curiosity so _painful_ to us, as to resemble, in a very great degree,
the uneasiness which we feel from the ungratified cravings of bodily
appetite. We more readily, therefore, yield to the illusion which seems
to remove this suspense: and are happy to think, however falsely, that
we have now completed our inquiry, and that, without attempting any
more elementary analysis, we may content ourselves with simply classing
the results which we have already obtained. Though there is no human
being who must not have felt doubts on some point or other, it is not
every one who knows how to doubt. To the perfection of a doubt, indeed,
it is essential,--if I may apply to it what rhetoricians say of an epic
or dramatic narrative,--that it should have a beginning, a middle,
and in many cases, too, though not in all, an end. The middle is a
very easy matter; the great difficulty relates to the beginning and
the end, and to the end not less than the beginning. We err equally,
when the doubt ceases too soon, and when it does not cease where it
ought to cease. There is a scepticism as different from the true
spirit of philosophy, as the most contented ignorance, that has never
questioned a single prejudice; a scepticism, which, instead of seeking
to distinguish truth from falsehood, _professes_ to deny altogether
the competency of our faculties as to making such a distinction in any
case, and to which any proposition, therefore, is as likely as its
opposite. With this wild half reasoning extravagance, which is ignorant
whether it affirms or denies, and which does not even know certainly
that it has any uncertainty at all, it would be manifestly absurd to
reason; and we may even truly say of it, notwithstanding the high
character of perfect doubting which it affects, that it does not know
how to doubt more than the all-credulous imbecility which it despises
and derides; because it does not know in what circumstances doubt is
legitimate, and in what circumstances it should cease. But, at the same
time, he also, it may be said, does not know how to doubt, who is
completely satisfied with the result of an inquiry which he is capable
of prosecuting still further,--even though it were only by the addition
of a single step to the thousand which he may already have made. Truth
is the last link of many long chains; the first links of all of which,
Nature has placed in our hands. When we have fairly arrived at the
last, and feel completely that there is no link beyond, it would be
manifestly absurd to suppose, that we can still proceed further;--but
if we stop before we have arrived at the last, maintaining, without
stretching out our hand to make the experiment, that there cannot be
yet another link after that which we have reached, it matters not how
far we may have advanced. Truth is still _beyond_ us--to be grasped
only by an arm more vigorous and persevering.
If, instead of maintaining boldly, that we have reached the last
link of the chain, we content ourselves with affirming, that we have
reached the last which human effort can reach, we must beware that we
do not measure the incapacity of the whole race of mankind by our own
individual inability, or, which is far from improbable, that we do not
mistake for inability, even in ourselves, what is only the irksomeness
of long continued exertion. Our power is often much greater than we are
willing to believe; and in many cases, as La Rochefoucault very justly
says, it is only to excuse to ourselves our own indolence that we talk
of things as impossible. “Non putant fieri,” says Seneca, speaking of
persons of this character, “quicquid facere non possunt. Ex infirmitate
sua ferunt sententiam.”--“Scis quare non possumus ista? Quia nos posse
non credimus.”--“Magno animo de rebus magnis judicandum est; alioqui
videbitur illarum vitium esse quod nostrum est.”
Much evil, then, it must be admitted, would arise in the Philosophy of
Mind from a disposition to acquiesce too soon in instinctive principles
of belief. But though these may be, and have been, multiplied
unnecessarily, and beyond the truth of nature, it is not less certain,
that of our mental nature such principles are truly a part. We should,
indeed, draw _monsters_, not _men_, if we were to represent the human
head and trunk with a double proportion of arms and legs; but we should
also give an unfaithful portraiture of the human figure, and should
draw monsters, not men, if we were to represent them with but one arm
and leg, or with no arm or leg at all. In like manner, to suppose the
mind endowed with more principles of intuition than belong to it, would
be to imagine a species of _mental_ monster. But it would not less be
a mental monster, if we were to attempt to strip it of the principles
which it truly possesses.
In contending, then, for the authority of certain _first principles_
of belief, such as that on which I conceive the conviction of
our identity to be founded, I am sufficiently aware, in how many
instances, reference to these has been rashly made by philosophers;
when a deeper and more minute analysis would have shewn, that the
supposed first principles were not elementary laws of thought, but
were resolvable into others more simple. It is not to be inferred,
however, from the rash attempts to establish principles of intuitive
belief which do not exist, that there are no such principles in our
mental constitution, any more than it is to be inferred, from the
general prevalence of bad reasoning, that it is impossible for a human
being to reason accurately. I trust, at any rate, that I have already
sufficiently warned you, against the danger of acquiescing too soon
in any proposition, as a law _of thought_, precluding all further
inquiry, from its own primary and independent evidence; and that I
have impressed you, not merely with the necessity of admitting some
principles of this sort, as essential to every reasoning, but with
the necessity also, of admitting them, only after the most cautious
examination.
The difficulty of ascertaining precisely, whether it be truth which we
have attained, is, in many cases, much greater, than the difficulty of
the actual attainment. Philosophy has in this respect been compared, by
a very happy illustration,--which, therefore, homely and familiar as it
is, I make no scruple to quote,--to “a game at which children play, in
which one of them, with his eyes bandaged, runs after the others. If he
catch any one, he is obliged to tell his name; and if he fail to name
him, he is obliged to let him go, and to begin his running once more.
It is the same,” says Fontenelle, the author from whom I borrow this
image, “in our seeking after truth. Though we have our eyes bandaged,
we do sometimes catch it.--But then we cannot maintain with certainty
that it _is_ truth, which we have caught;--and in that moment it
escapes from us.”
If there be, as it has been already shewn that there must be,
intuitive truths; and, if we are not to reject, but only to weigh
cautiously, the belief which seems to us intuitive, it will be
difficult to find any, which has a better claim to this distinction,
than the faith which we have, in our identity, as one continued
sentient and thinking being, or rather, to speak more accurately, as
one permanent being capable of many varieties of sensation and thought.
There is to be found in it, every circumstance which can be required
to substantiate it as a law of intuitive belief. It is universal,
irresistible, immediate. Indeed, so truly prior and paramount is it
to mere reasoning, that the very notion of reasoning necessarily
involves the belief of our identity as admitted. To reason, is to draw
a conclusion from some former proposition; and how can one truth be
inferred from another truth, unless the mind, which admits the one,
be the mind, which admitted the other? In its order, as much as in
its importance, it may be truly considered as the _first_ of those
truths which do not depend on reasoning, and as itself necessarily
implied, perhaps in all, certainly in the greater number, of our other
intuitions. I believe, for example, without being able to infer it,
or even to discover the greater probability of it, by any process of
reasoning, that the course of nature in future will resemble the past;
and, since all mankind have the same irresistible tendency, I have no
scruple in referring it to an original principle of our nature. In
taking for granted this similarity, however, in the order of succession
of two distinct sets of phenomena, I must previously have believed,
that _I_, the same sentient being, who expect a certain order in the
future phenomena of nature, have already observed a certain order in
the past.
Since, then, the belief of our identity is intuitive and irresistible,
the only inquiry which remains is as to the circumstances in which the
belief arises. Identity is a _relative_ term. It implies of course,
in every instance, a double observation of some sort. The identity of
our mind is its continuance, as the subject of various feelings, or at
least as that which is susceptible of various feelings. The belief of
it therefore, can arise only on the consideration of its successive
phenomena; and is indeed involved in the mere consideration of these as
successive.
The knowledge of our _mind_ as a _substance_, and the belief of
our _identity_ during successive feelings, may be considered as
the same notion, expressed in different words. Our identity is
the unity and sameness of that which thinks and feels,--itself
substantially unchanged amid the endless variety of its thoughts and
feelings,--capable of existing separately in all these different
states; not ceasing therefore when they cease, but independent of their
transient changes. The knowledge of _mind_, then, as a substance,
implying the belief of identity during changes of state cannot be
involved in any one of these separate states; and, if our feelings
merely succeeded each other, in the same manner as the moving bodies of
a long procession are reflected from a mirror, without any vestige of
them as _past_, or consequently, any remembrance of their successions,
we should be as incapable of forming a notion of the sentient substance
_mind_, abstracted from the momentary sensation, as the mirror itself;
though we should indeed differ from the mirror, in having what mind
only can have, the sensations themselves, thus rapidly existing and
perishing.
But, if it be only on the consideration of some _past_ feeling,
that the belief of the permanent substance mind can arise, it is to
the principle which recals to us past feelings, that the belief is
ultimately to be traced. We _remember_;--and in that remembrance is
involved the belief, the source of which we seek. It is not merely a
past feeling that arises to us, in what is commonly termed memory, but
a feeling that is recognized by us as _ours_, in that past time of
which we think,--a feeling, therefore, of that mind which now remembers
what it before saw, perhaps, or heard, or enjoyed, or suffered. We
are told by writers on this subject, that it is from a _comparison_
of our present with our past consciousness, that the belief of our
identity in these states arises; and this use of the term comparison,
which is commonly applied to a process of a different kind, may perhaps
mislead you as to this simpler process. It is true, indeed, that the
belief arises from a feeling of the past, that is remembered, together
with the consciousness of our remembrance as a present feeling,--a
contemplation, as it were, of two successive states of the mind. But
the comparison is nothing more than this.--It is not to be supposed
that we discover in the two feelings some common quality or proportion,
as when, in arithmetic or geometry we compare two numbers, or two
regular figures; for the two feelings may have nothing common, except
that very belief of identity which is involved in the remembrance
itself. We remember the past,--we feel the present,--we believe, and
cannot but believe, that the rememberer of the past existed in that
past which he remembers. The _process_ itself is sufficiently simple,
however truly wonderful one of the feelings may be which forms the
most important part of the process;--for we are not to forget that the
remembrance itself, the revealer of the past, is not a past, but a
_present_ feeling. It is the mind existing for the present moment in a
particular state, as much as any primary and immediate sensation is the
mind existing in a particular state. That this state of remembrance,
itself a present feeling, should be representative to us of some former
feeling, so as to impress us irresistibly with the belief of that
former state of the mind, is indeed most wonderful; but that it does
impress us with this belief, is as undeniable as the belief itself is
irresistible.
Our faith in our identity, then, as being only another form of the
faith which we put in memory, can be questioned only by those who
deny all memory, and with memory all reasoning of every kind,--who
believe only the existence of the present moment, and who with respect
to every thing else, are as incapable of opposing or questioning as
they are of believing. If our memory be unworthy of the faith which we
_intuitively_ give to it, all that is founded on memory, and therefore
demonstration itself, must equally deceive us. We cannot admit the
most rigid demonstration, or expect it to be admitted, without having
already admitted, intuitively, that identity, which in words only we
profess to question, and to question which, even in words, is to assert
the reality of that which we deny.
The belief of the identity of self, then, as the one permanent subject
of the transient feelings remembered by us, arises from a _law of
thought_, which is essential to the very constitution of the mind. It
has accordingly all the qualities, which I can imagine to be required
by the most rigid scrutinizer of our principles of intuitive assent. It
is universal, and immediate, and irresistible. I do not believe, with
more confidence, that the half of thirty-two is equal to the square of
four, than I believe, that I, who computed the square of four, am the
same with that mind, which computes the half of thirty-two, and asserts
the equality of the two numbers.