408 CONSTITUTION OF THE INTELLECT. [CHAP. XXII. 



Nature, or to the indissoluble connexion of propositions in all valid 

 reasoning upon her works. Historically we should perhaps give 

 the preference to the former, philosophically to the latter view. 

 But the fact of the connexion is indisputable, and the analogy to 

 which it points is obvious. 



Were, then, the laws of valid reasoning uniformly obeyed, a 

 very close parallelism would exist between the operations of the 

 intellect and those of external Nature. Subjection to laws ma- 

 thematical in their form and expression, even the subjection of 

 an absolute obedience, would stamp upon the two series one 

 common character. The reign of necessity over the intellectual 

 and the physical world would be alike complete and universal. 



But while the observation of external Nature testifies with 

 ever-strengthening evidence to the fact, that uniformity of 

 operation and unvarying obedience to appointed laws prevail 

 throughout her entire domain, the slightest attention to the pro- 

 cesses of the intellectual world reveals to us another state of 

 things. The mathematical laws of reasoning are, properly speak- 

 ing, the laws of right reasoning only, and their actual transgres- 

 sion is a perpetually recurring phenomenon. Error, which has 

 no place in the material system, occupies a large one here. We 

 must accept this as one of those ultimate facts, the origin of which 

 it lies beyond the province of science to determine. We must 

 admit that there exist laws which even the rigour of their ma- 

 thematical forms does not preserve from violation. We must 

 ascribe to them an authority the essence of which does not con- 

 sist in power, a supremacy which the analogy of the inviolable 

 order of the natural world in no way assists us to comprehend. 



"s the distinction thus pointed out is real, it remains un- 

 affected by any peculiarity in our views respecting other portions 

 of the mental constitution. If we regard the intellect as free, 

 and this is apparently the view most in accordance with the gene- 

 ral spirit of these speculations, its freedom must be viewed as 

 opposed to the dominion of necessity, not to the existence of a 

 certain just supremacy of truth. The laws of correct inference 

 may be violated, but they do not the less truly exist on this ac- 

 count. Equally do they remain unaffected in character and au- 

 thority if the hypothesis of necessity in its extreme form be 



