DOCTRINE OP SENSITIVE PERCEPTION. 295 



be believed, to exist ! Admit that a blind faith, a faith without 

 knowledge, is either satisfactory, or all that we can attain to, and 

 Philosophy may break her staff. There is no longer any work for her 

 to do. 



If Sir W. Hamilton's views be adopted, scepticism in regard to an 

 external world ceases, as a matter of course. The non-ego, according 

 to him, is immediately known to exist. No proof of the fact is 

 given ; none is needed ; we are conscious of it ; and our conscious- 

 ness involves its absolute certainty. Consider in what circumstances 

 alone doubt can, by any possibility, be legitimate. Should an object 

 not revealed in consciousness be affirmed to exist, there may be good 

 ground for calling its existence in question ; some defect may be 

 capable of being pointed out in the evidence through which a know- 

 ledge of it is supposed to be attained ; and in such a case, scepticism 

 is not only warantable, but imperative. In regard, however, to the 

 existence of an object revealed in consciousness, scepticism is utterly 

 inadmissible. The data of consciousness — those primary beliefs 

 which do not depend upon reasoning, but are the starting points from 

 which reasoning sets out — cannot be assailed- Not only when con- 

 sidered simply in themselves, as apprehended facts, but also when 

 considered as testimonies to the truth of facts, beyond their own 

 phenomenal reality,* " they must" Sir W. Hamilton writes, " by us 

 be accepted as true. To suppose their falsehood, is to suppose that 

 we are created capable of intelligence, in order to be made the victims 

 of delusion ; that God is a deceiver, and the root of our nature a 

 lie." Now, in Sir William Hamilton's opinion, the existence of the 

 non ego is one of the primary data of consciousness, and therefore 

 beyond cavil — " a chield that winna ding, and downabe disputed." — 

 Scepticism might be possible, on the principles of Mallebranche, who 

 seeks to prove by Scripture that a material world exists ; or on those 

 of Des Cartes, who reaches the same result through a consideration 

 of the veracity of the Divine Being. A sceptic is at liberty, in either 

 case, to bring to trial the demonstration offered, and to withho]d his 

 assent from the conclusion till he has satisfied himself that the proof 

 is good. But on the principles of Sir William Hamilton, the door 

 is shut against scepticism, for he affirms the existence of the non- 

 ego on an authority above argument. And, though our conscious- 

 ness of the non-ego does not, according to him, extend to distant 

 objects, but is confined to the bodily organism, and to extra-organic 



•The Hamiltonian doctrine of consciousness, here presented, seems liible to grave objec- 

 tions. For a review of it, by the writer of the present article, see Canadian Journal, N. 8., 

 vol. 1., page 379. 



