10 LESSONS FKOM NATURE. [CHAP. I. 



ence of &quot; self&quot; has been declared to be a thing which may be 

 doubted but not the existence of &quot; thought.&quot; It is just as 

 easy, however, to say, &quot; I doubt whether thought exists,&quot; as 

 to say, &quot;I doubt whether I exist;&quot; but it is as impossible 

 for any one to believe that his existence is doubtful as to 

 believe that the existence of thought is doubtful. The limits 

 of rational discussion, then, we must insist, are facts which 

 cannot be really doubted sue truths which no one can ac 

 tually ignore. To attempt to go beyond such limits is to 

 fall into mere puerility and verbiage. Merely verbal doubts 

 are as trifling as endless. We have a right to demand that 

 we should only be challenged by doubts which are really and 

 truly entertained by those who propose them, or are regarded 

 by them as at least possibly real in fact, that our time 

 should not be taken up by answering the ingenious cavils of 

 merely pretended sceptics. Can we believe that any one of 

 our opponents has any real and serious doubt as to his own 

 true and objective personal existence and his own personal 

 identity? Each may certainly be credited with a total 

 absence of any such absurd dubitation, and this because no one 

 out of Bedlam doubts really as to his own being and personal 

 identity, however much he may amuse himself by professing 

 to distrust such declarations of his consciousness and memory. 

 Will any such opponent seriously affirm that he is not certain 

 that he was not last year the Emperor of Eussia, or the boiler 

 of the Great Eastern, or that he is not absolutely sure that 

 he has not actually been all the various people or things 

 which have from time to time presented themselves to his 

 imagination ? 



And here perhaps a protest may be permitted against a 

 mode of representing thought which is eminently misleading. 

 Messrs. Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer agree in represent 

 ing that men are only conscious of a succession of feelings. 

 Now, in limine, an objection may be made to the term &quot;feeling&quot; 

 as the one generic name for all states of consciousness. It 

 may be so because the word &quot; feeling &quot; is intimately associated 

 in ordinary language with sensation. Thus to assert or 



