46 LESSONS FEOM NATUKE. [CHAP. IT. 



of truth. Mr. Spencer is right in affirming that the ultimate 

 declarations of our intellect are such supreme criteria of 

 truth, but wrong in declining to attribute to such declarations 

 absolute necessity and universal objective validity. But both 

 Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer err in failing to distinguish be 

 tween (1) that negative inconceivability which comes from 

 impotence or lack of experience ; and (2) that positive, active, 

 perception of impossibility which comes from intellectual 

 power and light. It is this active perception which reveals 

 summary of to us truths, neither the result of mere experience 

 tl^Ketr- nor of logical ratiocination ; since they are no sooner 

 rived at. thought of than we assent to them, and the validity 

 of all generalisation and deduction rests upon them as upon 

 original and fundamental principles. 



The following propositions seem, then, to be incontro 

 vertible : 



1. Knowledge must rest on truths which are incapable of 

 being proved, but are evident by their own intrinsic light, 

 otherwise we have either absolute scepticism or a regressus 

 ad infinitum. 



2. These fundamental truths must be subjectively evident. 



3. Such fundamental subjective truths declare their ob 

 jective, absolute, and universal truth. 



4. The intellect is thus carried by its own force from 

 subjectivity to objectivity. 



From this it follows that we have a supreme degree of 

 certainty as regards a variety of objective truths which the 

 intellect has the power of apprehending by the aid of sen 

 sible phenomena. Our rational nature is thus seen to be 

 capable of knowing truly what is within its range, and is 

 justified in its conviction as to metaphysical certainty. 



The same degree of inevitable certainty, guarded by the 

 same penalty of absolute scepticism, attends other dicta. 

 That &quot; whatever thinks exists &quot; is known to us as a necessary 

 a priori truth by its own evidence ; but that I myself exist is 

 known to me not by evidence of any kind, but by conscious 

 ness, to be a particular contingent fact of supreme certainty. 



