THE TEST OF TRUTH 



the future." Let us take as an illustration our 

 belief that every event must universally and 

 necessarily have a cause, — that no change can 

 ever take place anywhere without an antecedent. 

 This is what the Kantian would call a necessary 

 truth. And the Kantian would say, All that ex- 

 perience can tell us is, that in an immense num- 

 ber of instances, and in an immense number of 

 places, every event which has occurred has had 

 a cause. It cannot tell us that in all future in- 

 stances, and in all places throughout the uni- 

 verse, every event must have a cause. To test 

 such a behef by experience would require that 

 our experience should be extended through in- 

 finite time and infinite space, which is, of course, 

 impossible. Without such infinite and eternal 

 experience we can never be sure but sooner or 

 later, somewhere or other, some event may hap- 

 pen without a cause, and thus overturn our be- 

 lief. Nevertheless, we have such a belief — an 

 invariable and invincible belief. And since our 

 limited experience cannot have produced such 

 a belief, it must have arisen in us independently 

 of experience ; it must be necessitated by the 

 very constitution of our thinking minds ; and 

 must therefore be universally and necessarily 

 true. Such is the Kantian argument. 



Upon all this it is an obvious comment that, 

 if the belief in the universality of causation is 

 an inherent belief necessitated by the very con 

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