476 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



The following are the beliefs which are treated as fundamental 

 in the present essay. The reader is requested to accept them as 

 postulates while he is occupied with it. He may afterwards make 

 any or all of them the subject of a further inquiry, with the 

 advantage of knowing what consequences they involve. If they 

 stand this scrutiny, and if the scrutiny is a sufficient one, they will 

 become related to the present inquiry as lemmas and will cease to 

 be postulates. 



Postulates. 



First Belief. — That my present thoughts exist. 



Definition 1. — The term thought is taken in its widest exten- 

 sion. It is to be understood as embracing everything of which we 

 are conscious. 



Second Belief. — That my remembered thoughts have existed. 



These two beliefs involve a third, viz. : — 



Third Belief. — That time relations exist. 



Definition 2. — I, my mind, or the ego, is that varying group 

 of associated and interacting thoughts which includes my present 

 thoughts ; and included my remembered thoughts, with others 

 that are but partly remembered and some that are now for- 

 gotten. 



Fourth Belief. — That minds more or less resembling mine 

 exist in my fellow-men and in some other animals. 



Observation. — By intercourse between my mind and the minds 

 of my fellow-men I learn that they experience sensations which 

 are closely related to those that present themselves as a part of my 

 mind. Whence, and from much other evidence, I infer — 



Fifth Belief. — That my sensations and theirs have their source 

 in some existing thing or things which are not any part 

 of my own present or past thoughts. 



Bishop Berkeley entertained this belief as emphatically as 

 other men. He held that sensations are produced in human minds 

 by acts of will of a " governing spirit." 



