2i8 Address to the British Association 



transcend experience, and since we have no experience of 

 this force, save as a body Hving and acting in definite ways. 



It may be objected that its existence cannot be verified. 

 But what is verification ? We often hear of 'verification by 

 sensation,' and yet even in such verification the ultimate 

 appeal is not really to the senses, but to the intellect, which 

 may doubt, and which criticises and judges the actions and 

 suggestions of the senses and imagination. Though no 

 knowledge is possible for us which is not genetically trace- 

 able to sensation, yet the ground of all our developed know- 

 ledge is not sensational, but intellectual; and its final 

 justification depends, and w,ust depend, not on 'feelings,' 

 but on ' thoughts.' I must apologise to such an audience as. 

 that I have the honour of addressing for expressing truths 

 which, to some of my hearers, may appear obvious. I would 

 gladly suppress them as superfluous did not my OAvn 

 experience convince me that they are not superfluous. To 

 proceed : ' Certainty ' does not exist at all in feelings any 

 more than doubt. Both belong to thought only. ' Feelings ' 

 are but the materials of certainty, and though we can be 

 perfectly certain about our feelings, that certainty belongs to 

 thought and to thought only. 'Thought,' therefore, is our 

 absolute criterion. It is by seK-conscious thought only that 

 we know we have any feelings at all. Without thought, 

 indeed, we might feel, but we could not know that we felt 

 or know ourselves as feeling. If then we have rational 

 grounds for the acceptance of such a purely intellectual 

 conception as that of an immanent principle as the essence 

 of each living creature, the poverty of our powers of 

 imagination should be no bar to its acceptance. We are 

 continually employing terms and conceptions — such, e.g., as 

 ' being,' ' substance,' ' cause,' etc. — which are intelhgible to 

 the intellect (since they can be discussed), though they 

 transcend the powers of the imagination to picture. 



