24 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. I. 



know that in innumerable past instances the avouchment of memory 

 has been true, because you trust your present act of memory. The 

 blind man leads the blind round a circle incurably vicious. 



Let us observe the Professor s philosophical position. It is his 

 principle, that men know nothing with certitude, except their present 

 consciousness. Now, on this principle, it is just as absurd to say that 

 the facts testified by memory are probably, as that they are certainly 

 true. What can be more violently unscientific, we asked (p. 50, 

 note) from the stand- point of experimental science than to assume 

 without grounds as ever so faintly probable the very singular pro 

 position, that mental phenomena (by some entirely unknown law) 

 have proceeded in such a fashion, that my clear impression of the past 

 corresponds with my past experience f Professor Huxley possesses no 

 doubt signal ability in his own line ; but surely as a metaphysician he 

 exhibits a sorry spectacle. He busies himself in his latter capacity 

 with diligently overthrowing the only principle on which his researches 

 as a physicist can have value or even meaning.&quot; 



The trustworthiness of memory is as mysterious and exact- 

 what is im- i n g a dogma as the trustworthiness of our percep- 

 sertfngtiTe tions of universally necessary objective truth nay, 

 nTss ofme-&quot; it is as mysterious as any of the dogmas which the 

 objectivist philosophy enunciates, and yet without 

 admitting this trustworthiness we cannot advance one step. 

 By admitting it, we allow to our intellect the faculty of per 

 ceiving objective existence, of which the senses can give no 

 account, and which is altogether removed from the field of 

 sensible experience. If we admit the validity of such cog 

 nitions, on what ground are we to deny the validity of other 

 intellectual cognitions which are no less an object of cer 

 tainty ? If the mind has the power now of cognizing acts 

 performed by it, but removed by half a century s interval 

 from the domain of present experience, why may it not per 

 ceive the* necessary properties of all possible triangles, 

 though experience can give us cognizance of but a few actual 

 triangles ? 



Here, then, we may firmly take our stand, and assert that 



* Mr. Herbert Spencer himself well observes : &quot; Is it, then, that the trust 

 worthiness of memory is less open to doubt than the immediate consciousness 

 that the quantities must be unequal if they differ from a third quantity in 

 unequal degress ? Essays (stereotyped edition), vol. ii. p. -ill. 



