40 
nected together, and the whole theory which he has prepared so exactly 
covers the facts, that I do not know that there is any particular subject on 
which I have to remark. There is one point on which Dr. Irons has been 
criticised, and I must say that up to very recently I agreed with the criti- 
cism, but I have been led somewhat to alter my view. The sentence specially 
criticised was, that “ To affirm itself the mind needs no other principle than 
itself.” It was objected to that, that the mind cannot affirm itself without it 
comes into contact with some object of the external world. Now that is, no 
doubt, the great principle of modern metaphysical speculation. Descartes, 
who introduced modern philosophy, based it on consciousness ; then Locke 
made a step downwards, as I should say, and taught that all knowledge arose 
from sensation. Kant took this position. He said Locke is wrong in saying 
ail knowledge is from the senses. It is true that the senses, he said, give 
the occasion for our knowledge, but part comes from the mind itself. That 
position of Kant was ignored by Sir W. Hamilton, and I believe that is the 
position now generally adopted, although I have recently had reason to doubt 
its correctness ; and I think that modern philosophy has done wrong in 
departing from the middle-age position which Dr. Irons has brought to bear 
in his paper to-night. There are a great many facts which have led me 
recently to doubt the correctness of our modern position ; for I cannot ex- 
plain the fact of consciousness, of what I would call empirical consciousness, 
without supposing a higher consciousness. (Hear, hear.) Knowledge itself 
is something different from sensation, and sensation as we know belongs to 
empirical consciousness. There are a great many facts in our everyday life 
which seem to point the same way. What I mean by empirical conscious- 
ness is the consciousness we have while we are awake. But what becomes of 
the mind when we sleep ? And there are not only the phenomena of sleep, 
but a great many curious phenomena connected with dreaming, madness, and 
somnambulism. There are a great many curious phenomena which are not 
fully explained which seem to point to the same thing ; and not only that, 
but it is an undoubted fact that there is what we call latent knowledge. We 
find very common instances of it in the association of ideas. There are laws 
by which ideas succeed each other in the mind. Now it sometimes happens 
that two of these ideas, which appear wholly disconnected, succeed each other 
immediately. What is the link between them ? You must go to some other 
consciousness for it. I may say that my view is not at all matured on the 
subject. At first the position which Sir Wm. Hamilton held seemed to me 
to be reasonable, but recently I have come to doubt it. Then how come we 
by the previous thought that there should be a cause ? Some who have criti- 
cised that seem to be under the impression that our notion of causality is 
derived from our consciousness of our own actions, but I very much doubt 
whether that covers the notion of causality. I think there is something 
more 
Mr. Row. — I said that the consciousness of “I, myself” was the cause of 
action. 
Mr. G-reig. — I question very much whether that would explain it. 
