IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM.

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ness, and nothing more. But if wherever he speaks of dis tances and dimensions we write ideas of distances and dimensions, his propositions are reduced to nonsense. So, too, is it with Scepticism. The resolution of all knowledge into "impressions" and "ideas," is effected by an analysis which assumes at every step an objective reality producing the impressions and the subjective reality receiving them. The reasoning becomes impossible if the existence of object and subject be not admitted at the outset. Agree with the Sceptic's doubt, and then propose to revise his argument so that it may harmonize with his doubt. Of the two alternatives between which he halts, assume, first, the reality of object and subject. His argument is practicable; whether valid or not. Now assume that object and subject do not exist. He cannot stir a step toward his conclusion-nay, he cannot even state his conclusion; for the word impression cannot be translated into thought without assuming a thing impressing and a thing impressed.

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Though Empiricism, as at present understood, is not thus suicidal, it is open to an analogous criticism on its method, similarly telling against the validity of its inference. It proposes to account for our so-called necessary beliefs, as well as all our other beliefs; and to do this without postulating any one belief as necessary. Bringing forward abundant evidence that the connections among our states of consciousness are determined by our experiences that two experiences frequently recurring together in consciousness, become so coherent that one strongly suggests the other, and that when their joint recurrence is perpetual and invariable, the connection be tween them becomes indissoluble; it argues that the indissolubility, so produced, is all that we mean by necessity. And then it seeks to explain each of our so-called necessary beliefs as thus originated. Now could pure Empiri

cism reach this analysis and its subsequent synthesis with out taking any thing for granted, its arguments would be unobjectionable. But it cannot do this. Examine its phraseology, and there arises the question, Experiences of what? Translate the word into thought, and it clearly involves something more than states of mind and the connections among them. For if it does not, then the hypothesis is that states of mind are generated by the expe riences of states of mind; and if the inquiry be pursued, this ends with initial states of mind which are not accounted for the hypothesis fails. Evidently, there is tacitly assumed something beyond the mind by which the "experiences" are produced-something in which exist the objective relations to which the subjective relations correspond-an external world. Refuse thus to explain the word "experiences," and the hypothesis becomes meaningless. But now, having thus postulated an external reality as the indispensable foundation of its reasonings, pure Empiricism can subsequently neither prove nor disprove its postulate. An attempt to disprove it, or to give it any other meaning than that originally involved, is suicidal; and an attempt to establish it by inference is reasoning in a circle. What then are we to say of this proposition on which Empiricism rests? Is it a necessary belief, or is it not? If necessary, the hypothesis in its pure form is abandoned. If not necessary-if not posited d priori as absolutely certain-then the hypothesis rests on an uncertainty; and the whole fabric of its argument is unstable. More than this is true. Besides the insecurity implied by building on a foundation that is confessedly not beyond question, there is the much greater insecurity implied by raising proposition upon proposition of which each is confessedly not beyond question. For to say that there are no necessary truths, is to say that each successive inference is not necessarily involved in its premises-is

THE ASSUMPTIONS OF EMPIRICISM.

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an empirical judgment-a judgment not certainly true. Hence, applying rigorously its own doctrine, we find that pure Empiricism, starting from an uncertainty and progressing through a series of uncertainties, cannot claim much certainty for its conclusion.

Doubtless, it may be replied that any theory of human knowledge must set out with assumptions-either permanent or provisional; and that the validity of these assumptions is to be determined by the results reached through them. But that such assumptions may be made legitimately, two things are required. In the first place they must not be multiplied step after step as occasion requires; otherwise the conclusion reached might as well be assumed at once. And in the second place, the fact that they are assumptions must not be lost sight of: the conclusions drawn must not be put forward as though they have a certainty which the premises have not. Now pure Empiricism, in common with other theories of knowledge, is open to the criticism, that it neglects thus avowedly to recognize the nature of those primary assumptions which it lays down as provisionally valid, if it denies that they can be necessarily valid. And it is open to the further criticism, that it goes on at every step in its argument making assumptions which it neglects to specify as provisional; since they, too, cannot be known as necessary. Until it has assigned some warrant for its original datum and for each of its subsequent inferences, or else has acknowledged them all to be but hypothetical, it may be stopped either at the outset or at any stage in its argument. Against every "because" and every "therefore," an opponent may enter a caveat, until he is told why it is asserted contending, as he may, that if this inference is not necessary he is not bound to accept it; and that if it is necessary it must be openly declared to be necessary,

and some test must be assigned by which it is distinguished from propositions that are not necessary.

These considerations will, I think, make it obvious that the first step in a metaphysical argument, rightly carried on, must be an examination of propositions for the purpose of ascertaining what character is common to those which we call unquestionably true, and is implied by asserting their unquestionable truth. Further, to carry on this inquiry legitimately, we must restrict our analysis rigorously to states of consciousness considered in their relations to one another: wholly ignoring any thing beyond consciousness to which these states and their relations may be supposed to refer. For if, before we have ascertained by comparing propositions what is the trait that leads us to class some of them as certainly true, we avowedly or tacitly take for granted the existence of something beyond consciousness; then, a particular proposition is assumed to be certainly true before we have ascertained what is the distinctive character of the propositions which we call certainly true, and the analysis is vitiated. If we cannot transcend consciousness-if, therefore, what we know as truth must be some mental state, or some combination of mental states; it must be possible for us to say in what way we distinguish this state or these states. The definition of truth must be expressible in terms of consciousness; and, indeed, cannot otherwise be expressed if consciousness cannot be transcended. Clearly, then, the metaphysician's first step must be to shut out from his investigation every thing but what is subjective; not taking for granted the existence of any thing objective corresponding to his ideas, until he has ascertained what property of his ideas it is which he predicates by calling them true. Let us note the result if he does this.

The words of a proposition are the signs of certain

NATURE AND ELEMENTS OF A PROPOSITION.

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states of consciousness; and the thing alleged by a proposition is the connection or disconnection of the states of consciousness signified. When thinking is carried on with precision-when the mental states which we call words, are translated into the mental states they symbolize (which they very frequently are not)-thinking a proposition consists in the occurrence together in consciousness of the subject and predicate. "The bird was brown," is a proposition which implies the union in thought of a particular attribute with a group of other attributes. When the inquirer compares various propositions thus rendered into states of consciousness, he finds that they differ very greatly in respect of the facility with which the states of consciousness are connected and disconnected. The mental state known as brown may be united with those mental states which make up the figure known as bird, without appreciable effort, or may be separated from them without appreciable effort: the bird may easily be thought of as black, or green, or yellow. Contrariwise, such an assertion as The ice was hot," is one to which he finds much difficulty in making his mind respond. The elements of the proposition cannot be put together in thought without great resistance. Between those other states of consciousness which the word ice connotes, and the state of consciousness named cold, there is an extremely strong cohesion-a cohesion measured by the resistance to be overcome in thinking of the ice as hot. Further, he finds that in many cases the states of consciousness grouped together cannot be separated at all. The idea of pressure cannot be disconnected from the idea of something occupying space. Motion cannot be thought of without an object that moves being at the same time thought of. And then, besides these connections in consciousness which remain absolute under all circumstances, there are others which remain absolute under special circumstances. Between

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