CHAP. JIL] THE EXTEENAL WORLD. 81 



be, although it is conceivable that the number of other pro 

 perties they might also recognise would indefinitely exceed 

 in number such properties as we are able to know by our 

 intellect acting through our sensitive organs. Our percep 

 tions might be added to, but not contradicted. 



If what has been here brought forward is correct if the 

 criticisms by which it has been sought to overthrow the 

 cavils of those who would bid us distrust our faculties and 

 the plain declarations of our intellect be just it follows that 

 the third lesson we may draw from nature is that we may 

 repose securely in our spontaneous trust in the truthfulness 

 of our natural faculties when matured and simultaneously 

 employed in the quest of real and objective truth. In other 

 words, that we may be certain that an external world really 

 exists, and that its various parts really possess those very 

 powers and properties which our senses and our reason com 

 bine to declare to us such objects do in fact possess. 



