354 REVIEWS— RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY, ETC. 



that a pure mode of the ego — a mode of the ego per se — nerer, in 

 any single instance, is an object of human consciousness. 



The principle, that we can apprehend real existence only in certain 

 of its phenomena, includes the familiar idea that neither mind nor 

 matter can be substantively known by us, but that we can know only 

 their qualities. It may seem absurd to shew hesitation regarding what 

 is one of the common places of speculative philosophy ; still, we would 

 venture to ask — Is Mr, Eraser sure that he can discriminate the 

 consciousness of quality from the belief of substance ? Is he sure 

 — to take the case of external perception — that he can discriminate 

 his consciousness of the qualities of matter, on the one hand, from 

 Ms belief in that substantive existence, on the other, of which the 

 object apprehended in consciousness is a manifestation ? Let it not 

 be fancied that we are looking back in the direction of David Hume, 

 if we say that we doubt whether this discrimination can be intelligibly 

 made. It is impossible, in a few lines, to explain ourselves fully ; 

 and, as has been already intimated, the exposition of our own views 

 is not at present the matter in hand. But we may observe, in gene- 

 ral, that we regard what is termed the knowledge of quality as, in a 

 certain sense, the knowledge of substance. The term knowledge 

 may, no doubt, be defined in a particular manner, and conditions of 

 knowledge laid down, from which the inference at once results, that 

 substance cannot be known. But definitions prove nothing. "What- 

 ever may be judged the most fitting language in which to convey the 

 idea intended, what we mean to convey is, that in every act of human 

 consciousness, the real, as substantively existing, is so discovered, 

 that not only are we determined, by a spontaneous faith, which no- 

 thing except a positive demonstration of the self-contradictory cha- 

 racter of reason could overthrow, to " presume" its existence ; but 

 that its existence is necessarily involved in the consciousness realized; 

 is (as we may express it) a factor requisite — not contingently, or in 

 virtue of the arbitrary constitution of the universe, but in the very 

 nature of things — to produce that consciousness. 



In speaking of the inductive belief, through which we attain a 

 knowledge of distant material objects, our author says : " Belief in 

 the universe, as a stable and coherent objective system, is an element 



in our ordinary belief in the universe as something real 



Through this inductive belief, our knowledge of existence, as a 

 system of mutually related objects, is a progressive knowledge ; nor, 

 as it seems, is belief in the coherence or consistency of the surround- 



