FALLACIES OF SIMPLE INSPECTION. 



489 



the constitution of our mental nature, 

 recognise as realities ; and realities, 

 too, of a higher order than the pheno- 

 mena of our consciousness, being the 

 efficient causes and necessary sub- 

 strata of all Phenomena. Among 

 these entities they reckon Substances, 

 whether matter or spirit ; from the 

 dust under our feet to the soul, and 

 from that to Deity. All these, ac- 

 cording to them, are preternatural or 

 supernatural beings, having no like- 

 ness in experience, though experience 

 is entirely a manifestation of their 

 agency. Their existence, together 

 with more or less of the laws to 

 which they conform in their opera- 

 tions, are, on this theory, apprehended 

 and recognised as real by the mind 

 itself intuitively : experience (whether 

 in the form of sensation or of mental 

 feeling) having no other part in the 

 matter than as affording facts which 

 are consistent with these necessary 

 postulates of reason, and which are ex- 

 plained and accounted for by them. 



As it is foreign to the purpose of 

 the present treatise to decide between 

 these conflicting theories, we are pre- 

 cluded from inquiring into the exist- 

 ence, or defining the extent and limits, 

 of knowledge d priori, and from char- 

 acterising the kind of correct assump- 

 tion which the fallacy of incorrect 

 assumption, now under consideration, 

 simulates. Yet, since it is allowed 

 on both sides that such assumptions 

 are often made improperly, we may 

 find it practicable, without entering 

 into theultimate metaphysical grounds 

 of the discussion, to state some specu- 

 lative propositions, and suggest some 

 practical cautions, respecting the forms 

 in which such unwarranted assump- 

 tions are most likely to be made. 



§ 2. In the cases in which, accord- 

 ing to the thinkers of the ontological 

 school, the mind apprehends, by in- 

 tuition, things, and the laws of things, 

 not cognisable by our sensitive faculty, 

 those intuitive, or supposed intui- 

 tive, perceptions are undistinguishable 

 from what the opposite school are ac- 



customed to call ideas of the mind. 

 When they themselves say that they 

 perceive the things by an immediate 

 act of a faculty given for that pur- 

 pose by their Creator, it would be 

 said of them by their opponents that 

 they find an idea or conception in 

 their own minds, and from the idea 

 or conception infer the existence of 

 a corresponding objective reality. 

 Nor would this be an unfair state- 

 ment, but a mere version into other 

 words of the account given by many 

 of themselves ; and one to which the 

 more clear-sighted of them might, and 

 generally do, without hesitation sub- 

 scribe. Since, therefore, in the cases 

 which lay the strongest claims to be 

 examples of knowledge d priori, the 

 mind proceeds from the idea of a 

 thing to the reality of the thing itself, 

 we cannot be surprised by finding 

 that illicit assumptions d priori con- 

 sist in doing the same thing errone- 

 ously : in mistaking subjective facta 

 for objective, laws of the percipient 

 mind for laws of the perceived object, 

 properties of the ideas or conceptions 

 for properties of the things conceived. 



Accordingly, a large proportion of 

 the erroneous thinking which exists 

 in the world proceeds on a tacit as- 

 sumption that the same order must 

 obtain among the objects in nature 

 which obtains among our ideas of 

 them. That if we always think of 

 two things together, the two things 

 must always exist together ; that if 

 one thing makes us think of another 

 as preceding or following it, that 

 other must precede it or follow it in 

 actual fact. And, conversely, that 

 when we cannot conceive two things 

 together, they cannot exist together, 

 and that their combination may, with- 

 out further evidence, be rejected from 

 the list of possible occurrences. 



Few persons, I am inclined to think, 

 have reflected on the great extent to 

 which this fallacy has prevailed, and 

 prevails, in the actual beliefs and ac- 

 tions of mankind. For a first illus- 

 tration of it, Ave may refer to a large 

 class of popular superstitions. If any 



