CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS. 23 



heads as to whether they existed or no — that this best 

 part of mankind should have gratefully caught at such 

 a straw as " cogito ergo sum" is intelligible enough. 

 They felt the futility of the whole question, and were 

 thankful to one who seemed to clench the matter with 

 a cant catchword, especially with a catchword in a 

 foreign language ; but how one, who was so far gone as 

 to recognise that he could not prove his own existence, 

 should be able to comfort himself with such a begging 

 of the question, would seem unintelligible except upon 

 the ground of sheer exhaustion. 



At the risk of appearing to wander too far from the 

 matter in hand, a few further examples may perhaps 

 be given of that irony of nature, by which it comes 

 about that we so often most know and are, what we 

 least think ourselves to know and be — and on the other 

 hand hold most strongly what we are least capable of 

 demonstrating. 



Take the existence of a Personal God, — one of the 

 most profoundly-received and widely-spread ideas that 

 have ever prevailed among mankind. Has there ever 

 been a demonstration of the existence of such a God as 

 has satisfied any considerable section of thinkers for 

 long together ? Hardly has what has been conceived 

 to be a demonstration made its appearance and re- 

 ceived a certain acceptance as though it were actual 

 proof, when it has been impugned with sufficient 

 success to show that, however true the fact itself, the 

 demonstration is naught. I do not say that this is an 

 argument against the personality of God; the drift, 

 indeed, of the present reasoning would be towards an 



