CHAP. L] THE STARTING-POINT. 3 



conceptions of matter and force, of cause and effect, of law 

 and order, which form the basis of all reasoning ; &quot; while, at 

 Belfast, in 1874 it was opened by what may be fitly termed 

 a sermon advocating the deliberate substitution of a religion 

 of emotion for one of reason. Professor Huxley, some years 

 ago,* bore witness to the needfulness of attending &quot; to those 

 philosophical questions which underlie all physical science ; &quot; 

 and he has again and again availed himself of his well-earned 

 popularity to press upon his hearers metaphysical considera 

 tions, and to endeavour to make plain to them that the 

 questions of really supreme importance are such as are 

 philosophical. 



In entering upon an inquiry which professes, as does 

 this, to take nothing for granted unnecessarily our need of a 



.,, ... . J starting- 



or without criticism, we must be careful that our point which 



. . . cannot be 



starting-point, in our investigation of nature, shall gainsaid. 

 be thoroughly satisfactory containing truth which is ab 

 solutely unquestionable. Such a starting-point is supplied 

 us by our passing mental states the facts of consciousness 

 itself. It is conceivable that the whole external world, and 

 all existences external to ourselves, might be delusions, but 

 everybody can see that while we actually have a feeling 

 we must have it, and that no supernatural being could cause 

 us to be thinking that which we at the same time do not 

 think, or not to think anything while we are actually con 

 tinuing to think it. Here, then, in consciousness itself we 

 have a perfectly satisfactory starting-point, a firm rock 

 which may serve as the corner-stone of a future edifice. 

 Such an edifice we may find it possible to raise by inquiring 

 into the activity of our own mind, by finding what it declares 

 to be ultimate and certain truths (if it declares any to be such), 

 by criticising the tests given as to such truths being certain 

 and ultimate, and by examining the grounds on which we are, 

 if at all, to accept such declarations as true, having, at the 

 same time, seen what truth itself really is. 



* Contemporary Review, November 1871, pp. 443, 444. 



B 2 



