518 INTELLECTUAL SYMBOLISM. 
stance in which one truth is perceived as necessarily resulting from the relation of two or 
more truths which were previously known. 
226. Behold the three guides to knowledge,—the only three that we can possibly em- 
ploy,—the three within whose province lies the whole territory of conceivable or possible 
truth. Sense, the guide to a knowledge of the outward world; Self-consciousness, the 
observer of the inward workings of our own minds; Reason, the teacher of abstract and 
general truth, and the judge to whose tribunal is our ultimate appeal in all questions of 
doubt. Distinct, and yet working in entire harmony with each other, they have each a 
separate and equally important office; the decisions of each in its appropriate sphere are 
equally reliable. We have seen that this is true in the few instances which have been 
adduced; and if we extend our inquiries faithfully and cautiously, we shall find that it is 
always so, and that even the errors to which we are all confessedly subject in no wise 
weaken the confidence that we naturally repose in each of our faculties.* 
227. We are now able to answer our original question: What are the limits and cha- 
racteristics of positive knowledge? We are necessarily limited to such simple and self- 
evident propositions as we may be able to discover, and such additional, but more obscure 
truths as we may logically deduce from a comparison of those elementary propositions. 
We find in ourselves a tribunal capable of judging in all cases, and if its decisions ‘are 
pronounced without any hesitation, if they are clearly perceived and understood, and if 
we feel that. they are such as cannot be doubted, we know them to be true. 
228. Many of the propositions that receive our full belief are not such as the reason 
decides upon at once, but their validity is found to rest upon the validity of certain other 
discoverable data. In examining them, we are obliged to reverse the process by which 
they were originally acquired, pausing at every step to discover whether Reason gives us 
her full and unqualified approval. If we can proceed in this manner until we arrive at 
simple, self-evident propositions, we know that the original propositions are true. ‘Thus, 
both by deduction from simple truths, and by a critical examination of credible asser- 
* In this exposition of the sources of positive knowledge, I have followed pretty closely the teachings of Cou- 
sin and Hamilton, introducing such modifications as would give greater prominence to the triple movement of 
Intelligence under relation. Mahan traces all knowledge to Sense, Consciousness, and Reason, but his definitions 
appear to limit Consciousness to the sphere of Hamilton’s Self-consciousness, and Reason to the sphere of simple 
Intuition. Self-consciousness is evidently possible only in and through Memory, and if the discussion were merely 
about the faculties, instead of their modes of action, it would have been more appropriate to have regarded as the 
three guides to knowledge, the rational faculties through which the first incomes of knowledge are received,— 
RMM, RMS, RMR. As the symbolism approaches perfection, and its various applications are more fully under- 
stood, it will perhaps be easy to define acts and processes with as great precision as we can now define faculties, 
but for the present, we must content ourselves with such approximations to accuracy as are within our reach. 
