THEORIES CONCERNING AXIOMS. 297 



time, the iriconceivableness of its negation is the deepest test 

 any belief admits of. ... Objective facts are ever im- 

 pressing themselves upon us ; our experience is a register of 

 these objective facts ; and the inconceivableness of a thing 

 implies that it is wholly at variance with the register. Even 

 were this all, it is not clear how, if every truth is primarily 

 inductive, any better test of truth could exist. But it must 

 be remembered that whilst many of these facts, impressing 

 themselves upon us, are occasional ; whilst others again are 

 very general ; some are universal and unchanging. These 

 universal and unchanging facts are, by the hypothesis, certain 

 to establish beliefs of which the negations are inconceivable ; 

 whilst the others are not certain to do this ; and if they do, 

 subsequent facts will reverse their action. Hence if, after an 

 immense accumulation of experiences, there remain beliefs of 

 which the negations are still inconceivable, most, if not all of 

 them, must correspond to universal objective facts. If there 

 be ... certain absolute uniformities in nature ; if these 

 uniformities produce, as they must, absolute uniformities in 

 our experience ; and if ... these absolute uniformities 

 in our experience disable us from conceiving the negations of 

 them ; then answering to each absolute uniformity in nature 

 which we can cognize, there must exist in us a belief of which 

 the negation is inconceivable, and which is absolutely true. 

 In this wide range of cases subjective inconceivableness must 

 correspond to objective impossibility. Further experience will 

 produce correspondence where it may not yet exist ; and we 

 may expect the correspondence to become ultimately com- 

 plete. In nearly all cases this test of inconceivableness must 

 be valid now ;" (I wish I could think we were so nearly arrived 

 at omniscience) " and where it is not, it still expresses the net 

 result of our experience up to the present time ; which is the 

 most that any test can do." 



To this I answer : Even if it were true that inconceivableness 

 represents " the net result" of all past experience, why should we 

 stop at the representative when we can get at the thing repre- 

 sented ? If our incapacity to conceive the negation of a given 

 supposition is proof of its truth, because proving that our expe- 



