384 REVIEWS — THE VALIDITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 



Sir William Hamilton allows that, in one respect, the data of con- 

 sciousness are, from the very nature of the case, incapahle of being 

 canvassed : they are placed " high above the reach of question." 



But in another respect "they are not beyond the possibility 



of doubt." "Were we omitting to notice the distinction referred to 

 — which is held to be important— it might perhaps be thought that 

 we are proceeding upon a mistaken or defective view of the system 

 which we are criticizing. We therefore observe that we are unable 

 to look upon the distinction as well-founded ; but that, even were it 

 so, this would not remove our objections to Sir William Hamilton's 

 statements. Sir William shall explain the distinction in his own 

 words. " Here, however, it is proper to take a distinction, the neg- 

 lect of which has been productive of considerable error and confu- 

 sion. It is the distinction between the data or deliverances of con- 

 sciousness considered simply, in themselves, as apprehended facts or 

 actual manifestations, and these deliverances, considered as testimo- 

 nies to the truth of facts beyond their own phenomenal reality. 

 Viewed under the former limitation they are above all scepticism. 

 But as doubt is in itself only a manifestation of consciousness, it is 

 impossible to doubt that what consciousness manifests, it does man- 

 ifest, without the doubt contradicting, and therefore anni- 

 hilating itself Viewed in the latter limitation, the deliver- 

 ances of consciousness do not thus peremptorily repel even the pos- 

 sibility of doubt. I am conscious, for example, in an act of sensible 

 perception, (1.) of myself the subject knowing ; and (2.) of some- 

 thing given as different from myself, the object known. To take the 

 second term of this relation : — That I am conscious in this act of an 

 object given, as a Non-ego — that is, as not a modification of my 



mind — of this, as a phenomenon, doubt is impossible It is, 



however, possible for us to suppose, without our supposition at least 

 being felo-de-se, that, though given as a Non-ego, this object may, in 

 reality, be only a representation of the Non-ego, in and by the Jigo." 



Now, admit this discrimination (if it can be comprehended) and 

 say if it in the least degree blunts the edge of the s< pictures offered 

 above ? In sensitive perception the deliverance of consciousness 

 considered as a testimony to the existence of the Non-ego, is not 

 " above all scepticism." It does not "peremptorily repel even the 

 possibility of doubt." The idealist, in denying the existence of an 

 external world, " does not advance a doctrine ah initio null." His 

 scepticism is, no doubt, unphilosophical . but why ? Because, in the 

 first instance, the data of consciousness must be presumed to be 





