.REVIEWS — THE VALIDITY OE CONSCIOUSNESS. 3S3 



strengthened. Our religious nature at the same time comes in to 

 fortify our trust in consciousness. On the supposition that consci- 

 ousness is not true, God would be a deceiver. Now, is it not pal- 

 pable that, underlying this whole course of thought, is the silent 

 implied concession, that the truth of our primary cognitions is not, 

 in the strict and absolute sense of the term, certain ; but that there 

 is only a vast and incalculable probability, amounting to moral cer- 

 tainty, in favor of their truth ? Philosophy, however, is impossible, 

 unless we can vindicate for our primary cognitions, real and absolute, 

 and not merely moral, certainty. 



But the question will be put : must we not, even with our absolute 

 faith in the infallibility of consciousness, still allow that its credit 

 would be broken down, if (supposing that possible) it were shewn to 

 be self-contradictory ? "We answer — and here lies the pith of the 

 whole matter — that the question is absurd. We do not reply with 

 Sir William Hamilton in the affirmative, and say that we would, in 

 the circumstances supposed, give up our trust in consciousness. 

 Neither do we reply in the negative, and say that we would not give 

 up our trust in consciousness. We say that the question is absurd. 

 In no intelligible sense (as we previously remarked) can the trust- 

 worthiness of consciousness be brought to trial. It is impossible 

 within our present limits to shew this with regard to our primary 

 cognitions at large. It must suffice for us to illustrate our assertion 

 by referring to sensitive perception, the form of consciousness which 

 Sir William Hamilton had specially in view in the statements on 

 which we are commenting. 



Sensitive perception is a relation of a certain kind between the 

 JLrjo and the JSon-cgo. What, then, is intended by asking whether 

 consciousness, in revealing the JEgo and the Non-ego in their mutual 

 relation, can be trusted ? The consciousness realized is nothing else 

 than the Iigo and the Non-ego existing in relation to one another. Sir 

 William Hamilton tells us that it is competent for a sceptic to lead 

 proof, and therefore obligatory upon us to listen to his argument in 

 favor of the assertion that consciousness is delusive. But sensitive 

 perception, the consciousness to which our present observations are 

 limited, being a relation, an actual relation, between the Ego and the 

 Non-ego: to say that it is, or may haply be, found to be delusive, would 

 seem to be equivalent to saying that a. subsisting relation is, or may 

 haply be found to be, not a subsisting relation ; and before We can 

 consent to 'hear evidence in support of such a. conclusion, we must 

 first be enlightened as to what is meant. 



