34 LESSONS FEOM NATUKE. [CHAP. II. 



stration is founded ; therefore we must either stop at an 

 indemonstrable point, or proceed to infinity, which would be 

 never to finish the demonstration.&quot; 



Although, to be perfectly consistent, Mr. Spencer ought to 

 deny the existence of any basis of certitude, or of any abso 

 lute and fundamental truth, yet, by a happy inconsistency, 

 he lays down the necessity of primary undemonstrable truths 

 underlying the whole fabric of knowledge. 



I cite with pleasure the following statements, which seem 

 as true and valid as they are admirably expressed. In 

 criticising Empiricism or Experientialism, he says : - 



&quot; Throughout its argument there runs the tacit assumption that 

 there may be a philosophy in which nothing is asserted but what is 

 proved. It proposes to admit into the coherent fabric of its conclu 

 sions, no conclusion that is incapable of being established by evidence ; 

 and thus it takes for granted that not only may all derivative truths 

 be proved, but also that proof may be given of the truths from which 

 they are derived, down to the very deepest. The consequence of this 

 refusal to recognise some fundamental unproved truth is that its fabric 

 of conclusions is left without a base. Giving proof of any special pro 

 position, is assimilating it to some class of propositions known to be 

 true. If any doubt arises respecting the general proposition cited in 

 justification of this special proposition, the course is to show that this 

 general proposition is deducible from a proposition of still greater 

 generality ; and if pressed for proof of such still more general proposi 

 tion, the only resource is to repeat the process. Is this process endless ? 

 If so, nothing can be proved the whole series of propositions depends 

 on some unassignable proposition. Has the process an end? If so, 

 there must eventually be reached a widest proposition one which 

 cannot be justified by showing that it is included by any wider one 

 which cannot be proved. Or to put the argument otherwise : Every 

 inference depends on premises ; every premise, if it admits of proof, 

 depends on other premises; and if the proof of the proof be continually 

 demanded, it must either end in an unproved premise, or in the 

 acknowledgment that there cannot be reached any premise on which 

 the entire series of proofs depends. 



&quot; Hence Philosophy, if it does not avowedly stand on some datum 

 underlying reason, must acknowledge that it has nothing on which to 

 stand must confess itself to be baseless.&quot; 



But the question immediately arises, &quot; How are unproved 



* Psychology, vol. ii. p. 391. 



