(Cam. Phil. Soc. Feb. 5, 1844.)

1. ALL persons who have attended in any degree to the views generally current of the nature of reasoning are familiar with the distinction of necessary truths and truths of experience; and few such persons, or at least few students of mathematics, require to have this distinction explained or enforced. All geometricians are satisfied that the geometrical truths with which they are conversant are necessarily true: they not only are true, but they must be true. The meaning of the terms being understood, and the proof being gone through, the truth of the proposition must be assented to. That parallelograms upon the same base and between the same parallels are equal;—that angles in the same segment are equal;—these are propositions which we learn to be true by demonstrations deduced from definitions and axioms; and which, when we have thus learnt them, we see could not be otherwise. On the other hand, there are other truths which we learn from experience; as for instance, that the stars revolve round the pole in one day; and that the moon goes through her phases from full to full again in thirty days. These truths we see to be true; but we know them only by experience. Men never could have discovered them without looking at the stars and the moon; and having so learnt them, still no one will pretend to say that they are necessarily true. For aught we can see, things might have been otherwise; and if we had been placed in another part of the solar system, then, according to the opinions of astronomers, experience would have presented them otherwise.

2. I take the astronomical truths of experience to contrast with the geometrical necessary truths, as being both of a familiar definite sort; we may easily find other examples of both kinds of truth. The truths which regard numbers are necessary truths. It is a necessary truth, that 27 and 38 are equal to 65; that half the sum of two numbers added to half their difference is equal to the greater number. On the other hand, that sugar will dissolve in water; that plants cannot live without light; and in short, the whole body of our knowledge in chemistry, physiology, and the other inductive sciences, consists of truths of experience. If there be any science which offer to us truths of an ambiguous kind, with regard to which we may for a moment doubt whether they are necessary or experiential, we will defer the consideration of them till we have marked the distinction of the two kinds more clearly.

3. One mode in which we may express the difference of necessary truths and truths of experience, is, that necessary truths are those of which we cannot distinctly conceive the contrary. We can very readily conceive the contrary of experiential truths. We can conceive the stars moving about the pole or across the sky in any kind of curves with any velocities; we can conceive the moon always appearing during the whole month as a luminous disk, as she might do if her light were inherent and not borrowed. But we cannot conceive one of the parallelograms on the same base and between the same parallels larger than the other; for we find that, if we attempt to do this, when we separate the parallelograms into parts, we have to conceive one triangle larger than another, both having all their parts equal; which we cannot conceive at all, if we conceive the triangles distinctly. We make this impossibility more clear by conceiving the triangles to be placed so that two sides of the one coincide with two sides of the other; and it is then seen, that in order to conceive the triangles unequal, we must conceive the two bases which have the same extremities both ways, to be different lines, though both straight lines. This it is impossible to conceive: we assent to the impossibility as an axiom, when it is expressed by saying, that two straight lines cannot inclose a space; and thus we cannot distinctly conceive the contrary of the proposition just mentioned respecting parallelograms.

4. But it is necessary, in applying this distinction, to bear in mind the terms of it;—that we cannot distinctly conceive the contrary of a necessary truth. For in a certain loose, indistinct way, persons conceive the contrary of necessary geometrical truths, when they erroneously conceive false propositions to be true. Thus, Hobbes erroneously held that he had discovered a means of geometrically doubling the cube, as it is called, that is, finding two mean proportionals between two given lines; a problem which cannot be solved by plane geometry. Hobbes not only proposed a construction for this purpose, but obstinately maintained that it was right, when it had been proved to be wrong. But then, the discussion showed how indistinct the geometrical conceptions of Hobbes were; for when his critics had proved that one of the lines in his diagram would not meet the other in the point which his reasoning supposed, but in another point near to it; he maintained, in reply, that one of these points was large enough to include the other, so that they might be considered as the same point. Such a mode of conceiving the opposite of a geometrical truth, forms no exception to the assertion, that this opposite cannot be distinctly conceived.

5. In like manner, the indistinct conceptions of children and of rude savages do not invalidate the distinction of necessary and experiential truths. Children and savages make mistakes even with regard to numbers; and might easily happen to assert that 27 and 38 are equal to 63 or 64. But such mistakes cannot make such arithmetical truths cease to be necessary truths. When any person conceives these numbers and their addition distinctly, by resolving them into parts, or in any other way, he sees that their sum is necessarily 65. If, on the ground of the possibility of children and savages conceiving something different, it be held that this is not a necessary truth, it must be held on the same ground, that it is not a necessary truth that 7 and 4 are equal to 11; for children and savages might be found so unfamiliar with numbers as not to reject the assertion that 7 and 4 are 10, or even that 4 and 3 are 6, or 8. But I suppose that no persons would on such grounds hold that these arithmetical truths are truths known only by experience.

6. Necessary truths are established, as has already been said, by demonstration, proceeding from definitions and axioms, according to exact and rigorous inferences of reason. Truths of experience are collected from what we see, also according to inferences of reason, but proceeding in a less exact and rigorous mode of proof. The former depend upon the relations of the ideas which we have in our minds: the latter depend upon the appearances or phenomena, which present themselves to our senses. Necessary truths are formed from our thoughts, the elements of the world within us; experiential truths are collected from things, the elements of the world without us. The truths of experience, as they appear to us in the external world, we call Facts; and when we are able to find among our ideas a train which will conform themselves to the apparent facts, we call this a Theory.

7. This distinction and opposition, thus expressed in various forms; as Necessary and Experiential Truth, Ideas and Senses, Thoughts and Things, Theory and Fact, may be termed the Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy; for almost all the discussions of philosophers have been employed in asserting or denying, explaining or obscuring this antithesis. It may be expressed in many other ways; but is not difficult, under all these different forms, to recognize the same opposition: and the same remarks apply to it under its various forms, with corresponding modifications. Thus, as we have already seen, the antithesis agrees with that of Reasoning and Observation: again, it is identical with the opposition of Reflection and Sensation: again, sensation deals with Objects; facts involve Objects, and generally all things without us are Objects:—Objects of sensation, of observation. On the other hand, we ourselves who thus observe objects, and in whom sensation is, may be called the Subjects of sensation and observation. And this distinction of Subject and Object is one of the most general ways of expressing the fundamental antithesis, although not yet perhaps quite familiar in English. I shall not scruple however to speak of the Subjective and Objective element of this antithesis, where the expressions are convenient.

8. All these forms of antithesis, and the familiar references to them which men make in all discussions, show the fundamental and necessary character of the antithesis. We can have no knowledge without the union, no philosophy without the separation, of the two elements. We can have no knowledge, except we have both impressions on our senses from the world without, and thoughts from our minds within:—except we attend to things, and to our ideas;—except we are passive to receive impressions, and active to compare, combine, and mould them. But on the other hand, philosophy seeks to distinguish the impressions of our senses from the thoughts of our minds;—to point out the difference of ideas and things;—to separate the active from the passive faculties of our being. The two elements, sensations and ideas, are both requisite to the existence of our knowledge, as both matter and form are requisite to the existence of a body. But philosophy considers the matter and the form separately. The properties of the form are the subject of geometry, the properties of the matter are the subject of chemistry or mechanics.

9. But though philosophy considers these elements of knowledge separately, they cannot really be separated, any more than can matter and form. "We cannot exhibit matter without form, or form without matter; and just as little can we exhibit sensations without ideas, or ideas without sensations;—the passive or the active faculties of the mind detached from each other.

In every act of my knowledge, there must be concerned the things whereof I know, and thoughts of me who know: I must both passively receive or have received impressions, and I must actively combine them and reason on them. No apprehension of things is purely ideal: no experience of external things is purely sensational. If they be conceived as things, the mind must have been awakened to the conviction of things by sensation: if they be conceived as things, the expressions of the senses must have been bound together by conceptions. If we think of any thing, we must recognize the existence both of thoughts and of things. The fundamental antithesis of philosophy is an antithesis of inseparable elements.

10. Not only cannot these elements be separately exhibited, but they cannot be separately conceived and described. The description of them must always imply their relation; and the names by which they are denoted will consequently always bear a relative significance. And thus the terms which denote the fundamental antithesis of philosophy cannot be applied absolutely and exclusively in any case. We may illustrate this by a consideration of some of the common modes of expressing the antithesis of which we speak. The terms Theory and Fact are often emphatically used as opposed to each other: and they are rightly so used. But yet it is impossible to say absolutely in any case, This is a Fact and not a Theory; this is a Theory and not a Fact, meaning by Theory, true Theory. Is it a fact or a theory that the stars appear to revolve round the pole? Is it a fact or a theory that the earth is a globe revolving round its axis? Is it a fact or a theory that the earth revolves round the sun? Is it a fact or a theory that the sun attracts the earth? Is it a fact or a theory that a loadstone attracts a needle? In all these cases, some persons would answer one way and some persons another. A person who has never watched the stars, and has only seen them from time to time, considers their circular motion round the pole as a theory, just as he considers the motion of the sun in the ecliptic as a theory, or the apparent motion of the inferior planets round the sun in the zodiac. A person who has compared the measures of different parts of the earth, and who knows that these measures cannot be conceived distinctly without supposing the earth a globe, considers its globular form a fact, just as much as the square form of his chamber. A person to whom the grounds of believing the earth to revolve round its axis and round the sun, are as familiar as the grounds for believing the movements of the mail-coaches in this country, conceives the former events to be facts, just as steadily as the latter. And a person who, believing the fact of the earth's annual motion, refers it distinctly to its mechanical course, conceives the sun's attraction as a fact, just as he conceives as a fact the action of the wind which turns the sails of a mill. We see then, that in these cases we cannot apply absolutely and exclusively either of the terms, Fact or Theory. Theory and Fact are the elements which correspond to our Ideas and our Senses. The Facts are facts so far as the Ideas have been combined with the sensations and absorbed in them: the Theories are Theories so far as the Ideas are kept distinct from the sensations, and so far as it is considered as still a question whether they can be made to agree with them. A true Theory is a fact, a Fact is a familiar theory.

In like manner, if we take the terms Reasoning and Observation; at first sight they appear to be very distinct. Our observation of the world without us, our reasonings in our own minds, appear to be clearly separated and opposed. But yet we shall find that we cannot apply these terms absolutely and exclusively. I see a book lying a few feet from me: is this a matter of observation? At first, perhaps, we might be inclined to say that it clearly is so. But yet, all of us, who have paid any attention to the process of vision, and to the mode in which we are enabled to judge of the distance of objects, and to judge them to be distant objects at all, know that this judgment involves inferences drawn from various sensations;—from the impressions on our two eyes;—from our muscular sensations; and the like. These inferences are of the nature of reasoning, as much as when we judge of the distance of an object on the other side of a river by looking at it from different points, and stepping the distance between them. Or again: we observe the setting sun illuminate a gilded weathercock; but this is as much a matter of reasoning as when we observe the phases of the moon, and infer that she is illuminated by the sun. All observation involves inferences, and inference is reasoning.

11. Even the simplest terms by which the antithesis is expressed cannot be applied: ideas and sensations, thoughts and things, subject and object, cannot in any case be applied absolutely and exclusively. Our sensations require ideas to bind them together, namely, ideas of space, time, number, and the like. If not so bound together, sensations do not give us any apprehension of things or objects. All things, all objects, must exist in space and in time—must be one or many. Now space, time, number, are not sensations or things. They are something different from, and opposed to sensations and things. We have termed them ideas. It may be said they are relations of things, or of sensations. But granting this form of expression, still a relation is not a thing or a sensation; and therefore we must still have another and opposite element, along with our sensations. And yet, though we have thus these two elements in every act of perception, we cannot designate any portion of the act as absolutely and exclusively belonging to one of the elements. Perception involves sensation, along with ideas of time, space, and the like; or, if any one prefers the expression, involves sensations along with the apprehension of relations. Perception is sensation, along with such ideas as make sensation into an apprehension of things or objects.

12. And as perception of objects implies ideas, as observation implies reasoning; so, on the other hand, ideas cannot exist where sensation has not been: reasoning cannot go on when there has not been previous observation. This is evident from the necessary order of development of the human faculties. Sensation necessarily exists from the first moments of our existence, and is constantly at work. Observation begins before we can suppose the existence of any reasoning which is not involved in observation. Hence, at whatever period we consider our ideas, we must consider them as having been already engaged in connecting our sensations, and as modified by this employment. By being so employed, our ideas are unfolded and defined, and such development and definition cannot be separated from the ideas themselves. We cannot conceive space without boundaries or forms; now forms involve sensations. We cannot conceive time without events which mark the course of time; but events involve sensations. We cannot conceive number without conceiving things which are numbered; and things imply sensations. And the forms, things, events, which are thus implied in our ideas, having been the objects of sensation constantly in every part of our life, have modified, unfolded and fixed our ideas, to an extent which we cannot estimate, but which we must suppose to be essential to the processes which at present go on in our minds. We cannot say that objects create ideas; for to perceive objects we must already have ideas. But we may say, that objects and the constant perception of objects have so far modified our ideas, that we cannot, even in thought, separate our ideas from the perception of objects.

We cannot say of any ideas, as of the idea of space, or time, or number, that they are absolutely and exclusively ideas. We cannot conceive what space, or time, or number would be in our minds, if we had never perceived any thing or things in space or time. We cannot conceive ourselves in such a condition as never to have perceived any thing or things in space or time. But, on the other hand, just as little can we conceive ourselves becoming acquainted with space and time or numbers as objects of sensation. We cannot reason without having the operations of our minds affected by previous sensations; but we cannot conceive reasoning to be merely a series of sensations. In order to be used in reasoning, sensation must become observation; and, as we have seen, observation already involves reasoning. In order to be connected by our ideas, sensations must be things or objects, and things or objects already include ideas. And thus, as we have said, none of the terms by which the fundamental antithesis is expressed can be absolutely and exclusively applied.

13. I now proceed to make one or two remarks suggested by the views which have thus been presented. And first I remark, that since, as we have just seen, none of the terms which express the fundamental antithesis can be applied absolutely and exclusively, the absolute application of the antithesis in any particular case can never be a conclusive or immoveable principle. This remark is the more necessary to be borne in mind, as the terms of this antithesis are often used in a vehement and peremptory manner. Thus we are often told that such a thing is a Fact and not a Theory, with all the emphasis which, in speaking or writing, tone or italics or capitals can give. "We see from what has been said, that when this is urged, before we can estimate the truth, or the value of the assertion, we must ask to whom is it a fact? what habits of thought, what previous information, what ideas does it imply, to conceive the fact as a fact? Does not the apprehension of the fact imply assumptions which may with equal justice be called theory, and which are perhaps false theory? in which case, the fact is no fact. Did not the ancients assert it as a fact, that the earth stood still, and the stars moved? and can any fact have stronger apparent evidence to justify persons in asserting it emphatically than this had? These remarks are by no means urged in order to show that no fact can be certainly known to be true; but only to show that no fact can be certainly shown to be a fact merely by calling it a fact, however emphatically. There is by no means any ground of general skepticism with regard to truth involved in the doctrine of the necessary combination of two elements in all our knowledge. On the contrary, ideas are requisite to the essence, and things to the reality of our knowledge in every case. The proportions of geometry and arithmetic are examples of knowledge respecting our ideas of space and number, with regard to which there is no room for doubt. The doctrines of astronomy are examples of truths not less certain respecting the external world.

14. I remark further, that since in every act of knowledge, observation or perception, both the elements of the fundamental antithesis are involved, and involved in a manner inseparable even in our conceptions, it must always be possible to derive one of these elements from the other, if we are satisfied to accept, as proof of such derivation, that one always co-exists with and implies the other. Thus an opponent may say, that our ideas of space, time, and number, are derived from our sensations or perceptions, because we never were in a condition in which we had the ideas of space and time, and had not sensations or perceptions. But then, we may reply to this, that we no sooner perceive objects than we perceive them as existing in space and time, and therefore the ideas of space and time are not derived from the perceptions. In the same manner, an opponent may say, that all knowledge which is involved in our reasonings is the result of experience; for instance, our knowledge of geometry. For every geometrical principle is presented to us by experience as true; beginning with the simplest, from which all others are derived by processes of exact reasoning. But to this we reply, that experience cannot be the origin of such knowledge; for though experience shows that such principles are true, it cannot show that they must be true, which we also know. We never have seen, as a matter of observation, two straight lines inclosing a space; but we venture to say further, without the smallest hesitation, that we never shall see it; and if any one were to tell us that, according to his experience, such a form was often seen, we should only suppose that he did not know what he was talking of. No number of acts of experience can add to the certainty of our knowledge in this respect; which shows that our knowledge is not made up of acts of experience. We cannot test such knowledge by experience; for if we were to try to do so, we must first know that the lines with which we make the trial are straight; and we have no test of straightness better than this, that two such lines cannot inclose a space. Since then, experience can neither destroy, add to, nor test our axiomatic knowledge, such knowledge cannot be derived from experience. Since no one act of experience can affect our knowledge, no numbers of acts of experience can make it.

15. To this a reply has been offered, that it is a characteristic property of geometric forms that the ideas of them exactly resemble the sensations; so that these ideas are as fit subjects of experimentation as the realities themselves; and that by such experimentation we learn the truth of the axioms of geometry. I might very reasonably ask those who use this language to explain how a particular class of ideas can be said to resemble sensations; how, if they do, we can know it to be so; how we can prove this resemblance to belong to geometrical ideas and sensations; and how it comes to be an especial characteristic of those. But I will put the argument in another way. Experiment can only show what is, not what must be. If experimentation on ideas shows what must be, it is different from what is commonly called experience.

I may add, that not only the mere use of our senses cannot show that the axioms of geometry must be true, but that, without the light of our ideas, it cannot even show that they are true. If we had a segment of a circle a mile long and an inch wide, we should have two lines inclosing a space; but we could not, by seeing or touching any part of either of them, discover that it was a bent line.

16. That mathematical truths are not derived from experience is perhaps still more evident, if greater evidence be possible, in the case of numbers. We assert that 7 and 8 are 15. We find it so, if we try with counters, or in any other way. But we do not, on that account, say that the knowledge is derived from experience. We refer to our conceptions of seven, of eight, and of addition, and as soon as we possess these conceptions distinctly, we see that the sum must be fifteen. We cannot be said to make a trial, for we should not believe the apparent result of the trial if it were different. If any one were to say that the multiplication table is a table of the results of experience, we should know that he could not be able to go along with us in our researches into the foundations of human knowledge; nor, indeed, to pursue with success any speculations on the subject.

17. Attempts have also been made to explain the origin of axiomatic truths by referring them to the association of ideas. But this is one of the cases in which the word association has been applied so widely and loosely, that no sense can be attached to it. Those who have written with any degree of distinctness on the subject, have truly taught, that the habitual association of the ideas leads us to believe a connexion of the things: but they have never told us that this association gave us the power of forming the ideas. Association may determine belief, but it cannot determine the possibility of our conceptions. The African king did not believe that water could become solid, because he had never seen it in that state. But that accident did not make it impossible to conceive it so, any more than it is impossible for us to conceive frozen quicksilver, or melted diamond, or liquefied air; which we may never have seen, but have no difficulty in conceiving. If there were a tropical philosopher really incapable of conceiving water solidified, he must have been brought into that mental condition by abstruse speculations on the necessary relations of solidity and fluidity, not by the association of ideas.

18. To return to the results of the nature of the Fundamental Antithesis. As by assuming universal and indissoluble connexion of ideas with perceptions, of knowledge with experience, as an evidence of derivation, we may assert the former to be derived from the latter, so might we, on the same ground, assert the latter to be derived from the former. We see all forms in space; and we might hence assert all forms to be mere modifications of our idea of space. We see all events happen in time; and we might hence assert all events to be merely limitations and boundary-marks of our idea of time. We conceive all collections of things as two or three, or some other number: it might hence be asserted that we have an original idea of number, which is reflected in external things. In this case, as in the other, we are met at once by the impossibility of this being a complete account of our knowledge. Our ideas of space, of time, of number, however distinctly reflected to us with limitations and modifications, must be reflected, limited and modified by something different from themselves. We must have visible or tangible forms to limit space, perceived events to mark time, distinguishable objects to exemplify number. But still, in forms, and events, and objects, we have a knowledge which they themselves cannot give us. For we know, without attending to them, that whatever they are, they will conform and must conform to the truths of geometry and arithmetic. There is an ideal portion in all our knowledge of the external world; and if we were resolved to reduce all our knowledge to one of its two antithetical elements, we might say that all our knowledge consists in the relation of our ideas. Wherever there is necessary truth, there must be something more than sensation can supply: and the necessary truths of geometry and arithmetic show us that our knowledge of objects in space and time depends upon necessary relations of ideas, whatever other element it may involve.

19. This remark may be carried much further than the domain of geometry and arithmetic. Our knowledge of matter may at first sight appear to be altogether derived from the senses. Yet we cannot derive from the senses our knowledge of a truth which we accept as universally certain;—namely, that we cannot by any process add to or diminish the quantity of matter in the world. This truth neither is nor can be derived from experience; for the experiments which we make to verify it pre-suppose its truth. When the philosopher was asked what was the weight of smoke, he bade the inquirer subtract the weight of the ashes from the weight of the fuel. Every one who thinks clearly of the changes which take place in matter, assents to the justice of this reply: and this, not because any one had found by trial that such was the weight of the smoke produced in combustion, but because the weight lost was assumed to have gone into some other form of matter, not to have been destroyed. When men began to use the balance in chemical analysis, they did not prove by trial, but took for granted, as self-evident, that the weight of the whole must be found in the aggregate weight of the elements. Thus it is involved in the idea of matter that its amount continues unchanged in all changes which take place in its consistence. This is a necessary truth: and thus our knowledge of matter, as collected from chemical experiments, is also a modification of our idea of matter as the material of the world incapable of addition or diminution.

Trinity Lodge, April 11th, 1844.

My Dear Herschel,

Being about to send you a copy of a paper on a philosophical question just printed in the Transactions of our Cambridge Society, I am tempted to add, as a private communication, a few Remarks on another aspect of the same question. These Remarks I think I may properly address to you. They will refer to an Article in the Quarterly Review for June, 1841, respecting my History and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences; and without assigning any other reason, I may say that the interest I know you to take in speculations on such subjects makes me confident that you will give a reasonable attention to what I may have to say on the subject of that Article. With the Reviewal itself, I am so far from having any quarrel, that when it appeared I received it as affording all that I hoped from Public Criticism. The degree and the kind of admiration bestowed upon my works by a writer so familiar with science, so comprehensive in his views, and so equitable in his decisions, as the Reviewer manifestly was, I accepted as giving my work a stamp of acknowledged value which few other hands could have bestowed.

You may perhaps recollect, however, that the Reviewer dissented altogether from some of the general views which I had maintained, and especially from a general view which is also, in the main, that presented in the accompanying Memoir, namely, that, besides Facts, Ideas are an indispensable source of our knowledge; that Ideas are the ground of necessary truth; that the Idea of Space, in particular, is the ground of the necessary truths of geometry. This question, and especially as limited to the last form, will be the subject of my Remarks in the first place; and I wish to consider the Reviewer's objections with the respect which their subtlety and depth of thought well deserve.

The Reviewer makes objections to the account which I have given of the source whence geometrical truth derives its characters of being necessary and universal; but he is not one of those metaphysicians who deny those characters to the truths of geometry. He allows in the most ample manner that the truths of geometry are necessary. The question between us therefore is from what this character is derived. The Reviewer prefers, indeed, to have it considered that the question is not concerning the necessity, but, as he says, the universality of these truths; or rather, the nature and grounds of our conviction of their universality. He might have said, with equal justice, the nature and grounds of our conviction of their necessity. For his objection to the term necessity in this case—"that all the propositions about realities are necessarily true, since every reality must be consistent with itself," (p. 206)—does not apply to our conviction of necessity, since we may not be able to see what are the properties of real things; and therefore may have no conviction of their necessity. It may be a necessary property of salt to be soluble, but we see no such necessity; and therefore the assertion of such a property is not one of the necessary truths with which we are here concerned. But to turn back to the necessary or universal truths of geometry, and the ground of those attributes: The main difference between the Author and the Reviewer is brought into view, when the Reviewer discusses the general argument which I had used, in order to show that truths which we see to be necessary and universal cannot be derived from experience. The argument is this,—

"Experience must always consist of a limited number of observations; and however numerous these may be, they can show nothing with regard to the infinite number of cases in which the experiment has not been made.... Truths can only be known to be general, not universal, if they depend upon experience alone. Experience cannot bestow that universality which she herself cannot have; nor that necessity of which she has no comprehension." (Phil. i. pp. 60, 61.)

Here is that which must be considered as the cardinal argument on this subject. It is therefore important to attend to the answer which the Reviewer makes to it. He says,—

"We conceive that a full answer to this argument is afforded by the nature of the inductive propensity,—by the irresistible impulse of the mind to generalize ad infinitum, when nothing in the nature of limitation or opposition offers itself to the imagination; and by our involuntary application of the law of continuity to fill up, by the same ideal substance of truth, every interval which uncontradicted experience may have left blank in our inductive conclusion." (p. 207.)

Now here we have two rival explanations of the same thing,—the conviction of the universality of geometrical truths. The one explanation is, that this universality is imposed upon such truths by their involving a certain element, derived from the universal mode of activity of the mind when apprehending such truths, which element I have termed an Idea. The other explanation is, that this universality arises from the inductive propensity—from the irresistible impulse to generalize ad infinitum—from the involuntary application of the law of continuity—from the filling up all intervals with the same ideal substance of truth.

With regard to these two explanations, I may observe, that so far as they are thus stated they do not necessarily differ. They both agree in expressing this; that the ground of the universality of geometrical truths is a certain law of the mind's activity, which determines its procedure when it is concerned in apprehending the external world. One explanation says, that we impress upon the external world the relations of our ideas, and thus believe more than we see,—the other says, that we have an irresistible impulse to introduce into our conviction a relation between what we do observe and what we do not, namely, to generalize ad infinitum from what we do see. One explanation says, that we perceive all external objects as included in absolute ideal space,—the other, that we fill up the intervals of the objects which we perceive with the same ideal substance of truth. Both sets of expressions may perhaps be admissible; and if admitted, may be understood as expressing the same opinions, or opinions which have much in common. The Author's expressions have the advantage, which ought to belong to them, as the expressions employed in a systematic work, of being fixed expressions, technical phrases, intentionally selected, uniformly and steadily employed whenever the occasion recurs. The Reviewer's expressions are more lively and figurative, and such as well become an occasional composition; but hardly such as could be systematically applied to the subject in a regular treatise. We could not, as a standard and technical phrase, talk of filling up the intervals of observation with the same ideal substance of truth; and the inevitable impulse to generalize would hardly sufficiently express that we generalize according to a certain idea, namely, the idea of space. Perhaps that which is suggested to us as the common import of the two sets of expressions may be conveyed by some other phrase, in a manner free from the objections which lie against both the Author's and the Critic's terms. Perhaps the mental idea governing our experience, and the irresistible impulse to generalize our observation, may both be superseded by our speaking of a law of the mind's activity, which is really implied in both. There operates, in observing the external world, a law of the mind's activity, by which it connects its observations; and this law of the mind's activity may be spoken of either as the idea of space, or as the irresistible impulse to generalize the relations of space which it observes. And this expression—the laws of the mind's activity—thus opposed to that merely passive function by which the mind receives the impressions of sense, may be applied to other ideas as well as to the idea of space, and to the impulse to generalize in other truths as well as those of geometry.

So far, it would seem, that the Author and the Critic may be brought into much nearer agreement than at first seemed likely, with regard to the grounds of the necessity and universality in our knowledge. But even if we adopt this conciliatory suggestion, and speak of the necessity and universality of certain truths as arising from the laws of the mind's activity, we cannot, without producing great confusion, allow ourselves to say, as the Critic says, that these truths are thus derived from experience, or from observation. It will, I say, be found fatal to all philosophical precision of thought and language, to say that the fundamental truths of geometry, the axioms, with the conviction of their necessary truth, are derived from experience. Let us take any axiomatic truth of geometry, and ask ourselves if this is not so.

It is, for example, an axiom in geometry that if a straight line cut one of two parallel straight lines, it must cut the other also. Is this truth derived or derivable from observation of actual parallel lines, and a line cutting them, exhibited to our senses? Let those who say that we do acquire this truth by observation, imagine to themselves the mode in which the observation must be made. We have before us two parallel straight lines, and we see that a straight line which cuts the one cuts the other also. We see this again in another case, it may be the angles and the distances being different, and in a third, and in a fourth; and so on; and generalizing, we are irresistibly led to believe the assertion to be universally true. But can any one really imagine this to be the mode in which we arrive at this truth? "We see," says this explanation, "two parallel straight lines, cut by a third." But how do we know that the observed lines are parallel? If we apply any test of parallelism, we must assume some property of parallels, and thus involve some axiom on the subject, which we have no more right to assume than the one now under consideration. We should thus destroy our explanation as an account of the mode of arriving at independent geometrical axioms. But probably those who would give such an explanation would not do this. They would not suppose that in observing this property of parallels we try by measurement whether the lines are parallel. They would say, I conceive, that we suppose lines to be parallel, and that then we see that the straight line which cuts the one must cut the other. That when we make this supposition, we are persuaded of the truth of the conclusion, is certain. But what I have to remark is, that this being so, the conclusion is the result, not of observation, but of the hypothesis. The geometrical truth here spoken of, after this admission, no longer flows from experience, but from supposition. It is not that we ascertain the lines to be parallel, and then find that they have this property: but we suppose the lines to be parallel, and therefore they have this property. This is not a truth of experience.

This, it may be said, is so evident that it cannot have been overlooked by a very acute reasoner, such as you describe your Critic to be. What, it may be asked, is the answer which he gives to so palpable an objection as this? How does he understand his assertion that we learn the truth of geometrical axioms from experience (p. 208), so as to make it tenable on his own principles? What account does he give of the origin of such axioms which makes them in any sense to be derived from experience?

In justice to the Reviewer's fairness (which is unimpeachable throughout his argumentation) it must be stated that he does give an account in which he professes to show how this is done. And the main step of his explanation consists in introducing the conception of direction, and unity of direction. He says (p. 208), "The unity of direction, or that we cannot march from a given point by more than one path direct to the same object, is a matter of practical experience, long before it can by possibility become matter of abstract thought." We might ask here, as in the former case, how this can be a matter of experience, except we have some independent test of directness? and we might demand to know what this test is. Or do we not rather, here as in the other case, suppose the directness of the path; and is not the singleness of the direct path a consequence, not of its observed form, but of its hypothetical directness; and thus by no means a result of experience? But we may put our remark upon this deduction of the geometrical axiom in another form. We generalize, it is said, the observations which we have made ever since we were born. But this term "generalize" is far too vague to pass for an explanation, without being itself explained. We are impelled to believe that to be true in general which we see to be true in particular. But how do we see any truth? How do we pick out any proposition with respect to a diagram which we see before us? We see in particular, and state in general, some truth respecting straight lines, or parallel lines, or concerning direction. But where do we find the conception of straightness, or parallelism, or direction? These conceptions are not upon the surface of things. The child does not, from his birth, see straightness and parallelism so as to know that he sees them. How then does his experience bear upon a proposition in which these conceptions are involved? It is said that it is a matter of experience long before it is a matter of abstract thought. But how can there be any experience by which we learn these properties of a straight line, till our thoughts are at least so abstract as to conceive what straightness is? If it be said that this conception grows with our experience, and is gradually unfolded with our unfolding materials of knowledge, so as to give import and significance to them: I need make no objection to such a statement, except this—that this power of unfolding out of the mind conceptions which give meaning to our experience, is something in addition to the mere employment of our senses upon the external world. It is what I have called the ideal part of our knowledge. It implies, not only an impulse to generalize from experience, but also an impulse to form conceptions by which generalization is possible. It requires, not only that nothing should oppose the tendency, but that the direction in which the tendency is to operate should be determined by the laws of the mind's activity; by an internal, not by an external agency.

One main ground on which the Reviewer is disposed to quarrel with and reject several of the expressions used in the Philosophy;—such as that space is an idea, a form of our perception, and the like,—is this; that such expressions appear to deprive the external world of its reality; to make it, or at least most of its properties, a creation of the observing mind. He quotes the following argument which is urged in the Philosophy, in order to prove that space is not a notion obtained from experience: "Experience gives us information concerning things without us, but our apprehending them as without us takes for granted their existence in space. Experience acquaints us with the form, position, magnitude, &c. of particular objects, but that they have form, position, magnitude, pre-supposes that they are in space." From this statement he altogether dissents. No, says he, "the reason why we apprehend things as without us is that they are without us. We take for granted that they exist in space, because they do so exist, and because such their existence is a matter of direct perception, which can neither be explained in words nor contravened in imagination: because, in short, space is a reality, and not a mere matter of convention or imagination."

Now, if by calling space an idea, we suggest any doubt of its reality and of the reality of the external world, we certainly run the risk of misleading our readers; for the external world is real if anything be real: the bodies which exist in space are things, if things are anywhere to be found. That bodies do exist in space, and that that is the reason why we apprehend them as existing in space, I readily grant. But I conceive that the term Idea ought not to suggest any such doubt of the reality of the knowledge in which it is involved. Ideas are always, in our knowledge, conjoined with facts. Our real knowledge is knowledge, because it involves ideas, real, because it involves facts. We apprehend things as existing in space because they do so exist: and our idea of space enables us so to observe them, and so to conceive them.

But we want, further, a reason why, apprehending them as they are, we also apprehend, that in certain relations they could not be otherwise (that two straight linear objects could not inclose a space, for instance). This circumstance is no way accounted for by saying that we apprehend them as they are; and is, I presume to say, inexplicable, except by supposing that it arises from some property of the observing mind:—an Idea, as I have termed it,—an irresistible Impulse to generalize, as the Reviewer expresses it. Or, as I have suggested, we may adopt a third phrase, a Law of the mind's activity: and in order that no question may remain, whether we ascribe reality to the objects and relations which we observe, we may describe it as "a Law of the mind's activity in apprehending what is." And thus the real existence of the object, and the ideal element which our apprehension of it introduces, would both be clearly asserted.