226 
we are within the region of that which is rightly so named. 
Asa far abler writer than Mr. Mill says— "Without reflection, 
man would play only a feeble part in the perception of truth ; 
he, indeed, takes possession of it, he appropriates it to lnmselt 
only bv reflection.”* And, as a yet more celebrated writer than 
either has said — “ Whether we wake or whether we sleep we 
should not suffer ourselves to be persuaded except upon the 
evidence of our reason. Observe, I say of our reason, not ot 
our imagination, or of our senses.”! Even if we think ot 
“ that which consciousness directly reveals/ 5 we must think 
of something else than sensation, or we cannot find anything 
in it which can be properly called knowledge, unless we are 
prepared to confound sensation and thought, and so to make 
knowledge a matter of the passive senses, instead of a matter, 
as it is, of the active intellect. And if we are to think ot 
direct suggestion as knowledge, we must, I fear, confound 
mere vivid thinking with true knowing. Multitudes of the 
thoughts which at one time are so clear and strong m us that 
we imao-ine we know their objects if we know anything at all, 
turn out to be only delusions. How shall we distinguish 
between these and those direct thoughts to which we may 
rightly give the name of knowledge ? How shall we even con- 
clude, or know, whether a direct thought is a true intuition or 
only a fleeting fancy? If we should take the mere thoujght^ot 
t cc t the 11,10 mw 
or 
ff me/ 5 how 
personal existence expressed in the 
shall we know that this is not a mistake? We must compare 
and infer. Apart from this comparison and inference there is, 
no doubt, thought : but all thought— even all true thought— is 
not knowledge. Consciousness supplies us with occurrences 
—matters of fact as occurrences in us— impressions, if you so 
choose to call them— myriads of impressions m relation to 
both the outer and the inner worlds, but these, as they are 
directly supplied, are not knowledge. They must be compared, 
sifted, and wrought out into thoughts which are the product 
of reason, or they can never bear the sacred name m a proper 
use of terms. 
It is in this process of comparison, sifting, and working out, 
that we light upon a full conviction of the truth, that there are 
two great classes of substances in the universe— the one we 
call matter and the other we call mind. But here we encounter 
a most formidable objection already alluded to incidentally. 1* 
is denied that we know any such thing as substance. Here we 
* Cousin’s History of Philosophy. Second Series, Vol. I., Lect. VI. 
f Descartes’ Discourse on Method. 
