FINAL CAUSE* 33 



scious. Our belief in the existence of external objects, in 

 their undergoing certain changes, and in their possessing 

 certain physical properties, rests on a different foundation, 

 namely, the evidence of our senses; for it is the result of in- 

 ferences which the mind is, by the constitution of its frame, 

 necessarily led to form. We may trace to a similar origin 

 the persuasion, irresistibly forced upon us, that there exist 

 not only other material objects beside our own bodies, but 

 also other intellectual beings beside ourselves. We can 

 neither see nor feel those extraneous intellects, any more 

 than we can see or feel the cause of gravitation, or the sub- 

 tle sources of electricity or magnetism. We nevertheless 

 believe in the reality both of the one and of the other; but 

 it is only because we infer their existence from particular 

 trains of impressions made upon our senses, of which im- 

 pressions alone our knowledge can, in metaph3-sical 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 centred in myself; but 

 that there exist other intellects similar to my own? Un- 

 doubtedly no other than the observation that certain effects 

 are produced, which the experience I have had of the ope- 

 rations of my own mind lead me, by an irresistible analogy, 

 to ascribe to a similar agency, emanating from other beings; 

 beings, however, of whose actual intellectual presence I can- 

 not be conscious, whose nature I cannot fathom, whose es- 

 sence 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 can- 

 not appreciate motives of which I have never felt the in- 

 fluence, nor comprehend the force of passions, never yet 

 awakened in my breast: neither can I picture to myself fecl# 

 ings to which no sympathetic chord within me has ever vi- 

 brated. 



Our own intelligence, our own views, and our own affec- 

 tions, then, furnish the only elements by which it is possible 



Vol. I. 5 



