18 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. 1. 



which we need demand. Now, whatever be its validity, 

 certainty as a fact exists, and no fact is a more sure one 

 for each of us than that of his own continued personal 

 identity. No conviction is more constantly and uniformly 

 acted on by us. As full and complete a practical acquiescence 

 is given to the conception, &quot; self exists,&quot; as to the belief that 

 &quot; a series of states of consciousness exists;&quot; and were any one 

 to refuse this practical acquiescence, then, unable to act, dis 

 course, or reason, he would be shut up in his sterile and 

 solitary direct thought. 



But what is this certainty of which they speak ? Is it 

 itself a thought ? And if so, what does one thought 



tainty 



implied 



cer- know about another thought ? and which thought of 





the two is it which has the knowledge? Thoughts 

 are not permanent, but progressive. To say that thought 

 exists is itself a figure of speech. It really means, &quot; some 

 thing exists which thinks.&quot; To know is not to be knowledge, 

 but to acquire and possess it, To have implies two factors, 

 not one alone. Certainty, again, without an &quot; I &quot; who is 

 certain, is as impossible as doubt without a doubter. 



As before observed, however, it will perhaps be reioined that 

 The refuta a ^ ^ ie f re goJ D g objections to Agnosticism are only 

 cince f 5 8 tu P 088 ^ 6 &quot; account of the exigencies of language ; 

 t^VgTomVof an d though it is impossible for advocates of nesci- 

 qu*cy l of&quot; ence to enunciate verbally their principles, yet that 



these principles are none the less true for all that, 

 and that it is grammar, and not reality and reason, which 

 reduces them to this impotence. To this it may be once 

 more replied that the spoken word is but the expression of 

 the mental concept ; and that there is nothing which can be 

 clearly and distinctly perceived which cannot be articulately 

 expressed and conveyed to other minds by language good 

 and sufficient for the purposes to which it is applied. What 

 was said in the opening of this paper, however, demonstrates 

 to what this objection amounts. It amounts simply to the 

 assertion that fundamental truth is what can neither be con 

 ceived by the mind nor expressed by words, and consequently 



