50 
attempt to establish these on higher degrees of certitude must 
be abandoned, as lying beyond the ^ Stf 
ties. He observes, our conceptions are only the measures o 
our own minds, and fail to represent the full realities of 
things. If this be the case, it is hopeless by any amount o 
reasoning on, or analysis of, these conceptions, to penetrate the 
Regions of ontology. The infinite God is a real existence external 
to our minds; but the idea of the infinite is a notional concep- 
tion and is incapable of adequately measuring the reality 
beyond the mind P In a similar manner it is impossible to 
solve the questions of being and non-being and the various 
questions of transcendental metaphysics by the conceptions o 
the human understanding. , ,1 x* 0 j. 
9 Dr Newman places, and I think rightly, among 
principles our belief in ’an external world. It is, as he says 
an instinct of our nature possessed by man and portions o 
the brute creation. All attempts to prove : its exis^ to Wshed 
get a true notion of it by analysis, beyond what is 
by our intuitional perception of it, seem to me as complete a 
fadure as the attempt to prove that things which are equal to 
the same thing are equal to one another. The axiom we 
perceive to be self-evident intuitively. The other, y^oug 
we cannot perceive it to be self-evident, yet do what we w 1 
we cannot help believing it, and after every attempt to 
its existence, we believe it still. Equally intuitive 
perceptions of the results of our particular acts of masoning 
Ld of memory. Under certain conditions, we cannot help 
believing in them, and I feel as certain of the truth of my 
having eaten my dinner yesterday, as I am of the truth of 
asses’ bridge. This attaches not to the faculties generally, 
but to ^particular acts. The moral nature of man mus 
also be taken for granted as an ultimate principle in our 
reasonings. We are conscious of its existence. As m^ter of 
fact, we feel the distinction between right and wrong, and this 
reality is quite unaffected by any curious speculations as to 
the origin of this perception. Whether the feeling of benevo- 
lence, for example, can be resolved into some pecu iar 
of that of self-love, is a mere question devoid of ay pr 
tical result. The feeling exists m fact. We are directly 
conscious of its existence; and whatever may have ibeen . 
origin, that it is opposed to the principle of sel ^ lo J e - 
primary consciousness and our instinctive percep i 
firm a foundation for reasoning as those truths which are 
commonly called axioms. Another similar prmcipe 1 
belief in causation. On this subject Dr. ewman 
number of most valuable remarks; and amidst much which 1 
