MAUDSLEY ON HEREDITARY DESCENT. 41 



been different ; and thus we are thrown into unrest 

 as to self-evident truth itself. If this unrest is justi- 

 fiable, then what we thought to be adamant under 

 our feet, is rocking on a deck afloat. We are not 

 sure that every change must have a cause. It is 

 assumed by some, that all we can assert is that every 

 change has a cause, not that it must have. By 

 others it is supposed simply that every change with- 

 in our field of vision has an antecedent which we 

 call a cause ; but we are not allowed by that school 

 to assert that there is any efficient connection be- 

 tween what is called the cause and the effect. 



It is our duty to ourselves to test these unnatural 

 theories by clear ideas. We are not bound in this 

 assembly to any school in philosophy. We have here 

 but one fundamental tenet : the clear first, the clear 

 midst, the clear last, and, in the clear, the true. We 

 care not what school goes up or down: we care for 

 clear ideas. [Applause.] Let us study some part 

 of the uniform experience of the race, and see 

 whether it has taught us any proposition which we 

 cannot reverse in imagination. I suppose the sun 

 has always risen in the east. My ancestors probably 

 never saw it rise in the west ; and by my ancestors I 

 mean the polyps. If the sun ever has risen in the 

 west, no record of the fact has been preserved ; the 

 colossal circumstance has made no impression on 

 human history. We may, I think, fairly suppose that 

 the sun has always risen in the east. There has been 

 a uniform experience of the race, from the first, of 

 sun-risings and star-risings in that quarter of the 



