404 FALLACIES. 



tions of our senses are of no importance or interest to 

 us except as marks from which we infer something 

 beyond them. It is not the colour and superficial 

 extension perceived by the eye that are important to 

 us, but the object, of which those visible appearances 

 testify the presence ; and where the sensation itself is 

 indifferent, as it generally is, we have no motive to 

 attend particularly to it, but acquire a habit of passing 

 it over without distinct consciousness, and going on 

 at once to the inference. So that to know what the 

 sensation actually was, is a study in itself, to which 

 the painter, for example, has to train himself by spe- 

 cial and long-continued discipline and application. In 

 things further removed from the dominion of the out- 

 ward senses, no one who has not great experience in 

 psychological analysis is competent to break this 

 intense association : and when such analytic habits do 

 not exist in the requisite degree, it is hardly possible 

 to mention any of the habitual judgments of mankind 

 on subjects of a high degree of abstraction, from the 

 being of God and the immortality of the soul down to 

 the multiplication table, which are not, or have not 

 been, considered as matter of direct intuition. In 

 saying this I do not seek to prejudge the question of 

 transcendental metaphysics, how far a certain number 

 of these habitual judgments are really intuitive, or 

 otherwise. I only point out the strength of the ten- 

 dency to ascribe an intuitive character to judgments 

 which are mere inferences, and often false ones. No 

 one can doubt that many a deluded visionary has 

 actually believed that he was directly inspired from 

 heaven, and that the Almighty had conversed with 

 him face to face ; which yet was only, on his part, a 

 conclusion drawn from appearances to his senses or 

 feelings in his internal consciousness which were alto- 



