xiv.] ON DESCAHTES &quot;DISCOURSE.&quot; 287 



by declaring doubt to be a duty, found certainty in consciousness 

 alone ; and that the necessary outcome of his views is what may 

 properly be termed Idealism ; namely, the doctrine that, what 

 ever the universe may be, all we can know of it is the picture 

 presented to us by consciousness. This picture may be a true 

 likeness though how this can be is inconceivable ; or it may 

 have no more resemblance to its cause than one of Bach s fugues 

 has to the person who is playing it ; or than a piece of poetry 

 has to the mouth and lips of a reciter. It is enough for all the 

 practical purposes of human existence if we find that our trust 

 in the representations of- consciousness is verified by results; 

 and that, by their help, we are enabled &quot; to walk surefootedly in 

 this life.&quot; 



Thus the method, or path which leads to truth, indicated by 

 Descartes, takes us straight to the Critical Idealism of his great 

 successor Kant. It is that Idealism which declares the ultimate 

 fact of all knowledge to be a consciousness, or, in other words, a 

 mental phenomenon ; and therefore affirms the highest of all 

 certainties, and indeed the only absolute certainty, to be the 

 existence of mind. But it is also that Idealism which refuses 

 to make any assertions, either positive or negative, as to what 

 lies beyond consciousness. It accuses the subtle Berkeley of 

 stepping beyond the limits of knowledge when he declared that 

 a substance of matter does not exist ; and of illogicality, for not 

 seeing that the arguments which he supposed demolished the 

 existence of matter were equally destructive to the existence of 

 soul. And it refuses to listen to the jargon of more recent days 

 about the &quot; Absolute,&quot; and all the other hypostatized adjectives, 

 the initial letters of the names of which are generally printed in 

 capital letters ; just as you give a Grenadier a bearskin cap, to 

 make him look more formidable than he is by nature. 



I repeat, the path indicated and followed by Descartes which 

 we have hitherto been treading, leads through doubt to that 

 critical Idealism which lies at the heart of modern metaphysical 

 thought. But the &quot; Discourse &quot; shows us another, and ap 

 parently very different, path, which leads, quite as definitely, 



