26 FINAL CAUSES. 



sions made upon our senses, of which impressions 

 alone our knowledge can, in metaphysical strict- 

 ness, be termed certain. 



Upon what evidence do I conclude that I am 

 not a solitary being in the universe ; that all is 

 not centered in myself ; but that there exist other 

 intellects similar to my own ? Undoubtedly no 

 other than the observation that certain effects are 

 produced, which the experience I have had of the 

 operations of my own mind lead me, by an irre- 

 sistible analogy, to ascribe to a similar agency, 

 emanating from other beings ; beings, however, 

 of whose actual intellectual presence I cannot be 

 conscious, whose nature I cannot fathom, whose 

 essence I cannot understand. I can judge of 

 the operations of other minds only in as far as 

 those operations accord with what has passed 

 in my own. I cannot divine processes of thought 

 to which mine have borne no resemblance, I 

 cannot appreciate motives of which I have never 

 felt the influence, nor comprehend the force 

 of passions never yet awakened in my breast : 

 neither can I picture to myself feelings to which 

 no sympathetic chord within me has ever vi- 

 brated. 



Our own intelligence, our own views, and our 

 own affections, then, furnish the only elements 

 by which it is possible for us to estimate the 

 analogous powers and attributes of other minds. 

 The difficulty of applying this scale of measure- 



