146 HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE. [chap. 



But if it is true, as I believe, that these couceptions were 

 facts of nature before they became forms of thought, and 

 are forms of thought because they are facts of nature, then 

 The it follows that the forms of thought correspond with the 



experience f^cts of external nature : we know things as they are ; our 

 raakel our knowledge of the universe, though very limited, is real so 

 knowledge ^^^ ^g ^^ extends. So that idealism, with all its vast pre- 

 thongh tensions, leads by a direct and logical path to absolute 

 Sfa scepticism ; while the experience-theory, though it is com- 

 possible paratively unpretending, and is often despised as being 

 belief" materialistic, is at least a possible basis for belief. 



Causation, I HOW come to the subject of causation. I believe that 

 like space ^^ acquire the knowledge of causation in exactly the same 

 is cognised way in which we acquire the knowledge of space and time, 

 b'^^connntr namely by direct cognition — by their coming within the 

 within the sphere of consciousness. 



conscTous- I liave already stated i my belief that we acquire our 

 ^^^- first cognition of space from the co-existence of sensations 



in different places in the body ; and that we acquire our 

 first cognition of time by the succession of sensations. In 

 the act whereby the mind cognises the separation of sensa- 

 tions in space, space comes within the sphere of conscious- 

 ness ; in the act whereby it cognises the succession of 

 sensations in time, time comes within the sphere of con- 

 sciousness. I believe that we acquire the cognition of 

 causation in an exactly parallel way to these ; namely, by 

 the relation of cause and effect entering into the sphere of 

 our consciousness. Consequently, our first knowledge of 

 causation is not merely inferential knowledge ; it is matter 

 of direct cognition, as much as our knowledge of likeness 

 and uulikeness, of succession, and of the space-relation. 

 But there is this peculiarity about the cognition of causa- 

 tion. The other three simple relations which I have 

 enumerated obtain between sensations ; and in cognising 

 them the mind may be perfectly passive. But with 

 causation the case is different. One sensation cannot be 

 cognised as the cause of another : when we are cognizant 



1 In the Chapter on Mental Development (Chap. XXXIII.). 



