11 
these into mere forms of tlm under standing, though they un- 
questionably determine the present sphere of our knowledge, 
and that whenever different hypotheses, are equally consistent 
with an observed fact, the instinctive testinidny df dohsciotisiieis 
as to their relative Vame must be allowed to possess authority. 
If space and time be regarded as presented to us by a special 
faculty, I shall call such faculty the Intellect. In that case I 
should say that we have two descriptions of presentative or 
representative factilties-^vi A, the senses and the intellect. 
7. According to Boole, besides the general propositions 
which are derived by induction from the collated facts ( of 
experience, there exist othefs bdldhging to tbe domain of what 
is called neveWdPty truth. Such are the general propositions of 
arithmetic, as well as those expressing the laws of thought, 
which are capable of rigorous verification in, and are manifested 
in all their generality from, the study of particular instanced 
Again, there are general propositions eXpressiVO of necessary 
truths, but incapable, from the imperfection of the senses, of 
exact verification. Some, if hot all, of the propositions of 
geometry are of this nature ; but it is not in that region alone 
that they are found. It has been maintained that propositions 
of this class exist in the mind independently of experience, and 
that those conceptions which are the subject of them are the 
imprints cf eternal archetypes. With such archetypes, con- 
ceived to possess a reality of which all the objects of sense are 
but a faint shadow or dim suggestion, Plato furnished his ideal 
World. It has, on the other hand, been variously contended 
that the subjects of such propositions are copies of individual 
objects of experience ; that they are mere names ; that they are 
individual objects of experience themselves ; and that the 
propositions which relate to them are, on account of the imper- 
fection of those objects, but partially true ; lastly, that they are 
intellectual products formed by abstraction from the sensible 
perceptions of individual things, but so formed as to become, 
what those things never can be, subjects of science, i.e ., subjects 
concerning which exact and general propositions may be affirmed. 
And there exist, perhaps, yet other views, in some of which the 
sensible, in others the intellectual, or ideal, element predominates. 
In Boole’s view neither do individual objects, nor, probably, do the 
mental images which they suggest possess any strict claim to the 
title of objects of science, objects in relation to which all its 
propositions are true without any admixture of error. He 
thought, nevertheless, that such conceptions, however imperfect, 
do point to something beyond themselves, in the gradual 
approach towards which all imperfection tends to disappear ; but 
that we can only affirm that the more external objects do 
approach in reality, or the conceptions of fancy by abstraction, 
to certain limiting states, never, it may be, actually attained, the 
jnore do the general propositions approach to absolute truth, 
