predicate is found by analysis to be contained in the subject. Everyone, for instance, can at once perceive that in the judgment, Two and two make four, the predicate, Four, is contained in the subject, 2+2. But, when I say that Mr. William Smith exists, I shall have to search a long time if I am to discover in the essence, or essential idea, of Mr. William Smith the predicate of existence. He exists as a fact; but it was not necessary that he should exist, till he actually existed. The fact is here the cause of the necessity, but the necessity is not cause of the fact. It is true that he must be because he is,' (a necessity based on the Principle of Contradiction); but it is not true conversely that he is, because he must be.' 'I think I shall be able to set this distinction more clearly before you, gentlemen, if I may be allowed to introduce you to what I may call Physical prophecies;-facts of nature, which are not, strictly speaking, facts as yet, but will be facts in their due order and time. Thus, The sun will rise to-morrow morning about seven,-On the twenty-fifth of next month there will be an annular eclipse of the sun, invisible at Greenwich, as the almanacks tell us,-or, again, The trees will be out in leaf before June, and the like. Now, of some, if not of all, these truths we are certain, because they are evident. But, why are they evident? Because they are the logically necessary sequence of a constant law of nature. So far, so good. But I next proceed to ask, have we any evidence that such a law is immutable? Does the idea of its temporary suspension, or absolute derogation, distress, confuse us in the same manner as when we try to conceive that Two and two might not make four? Is the idea of motion essentially contained in the idea of the earth, so that we could not imagine it as stationary under any conceivable circumstances? The consciousness of each one will answer in the negative. But why? Because it is to us evident, that as the Free-will of the great Creator imposed the law, so He could, at any time, if He so pleased, suspend or abrogate it. So that our undoubting assent to these prophecies is based on our conviction as to the constancy of physical laws. And our conviction as to the constancy of physical laws rests on the infinite wisdom and unchangeableness of the great Lawgiver. Hence, the judgment of the mind is always, at least virtually, conditioned, in so far as it is a true concept. The solar eclipse will take place on the twenty-fifth of this month, if there be no change in the laws of nature. To conclude: -Physical evidence and physical certainty are inferior to metaphysical evidence and metaphysical certainty, because these latter are

absolute, necessary, unconditioned; whereas the former are contingent and conditioned. There is this specific difference between them, that metaphysical truth, evidence, certainty, are independent even of the Will of God; whereas physical truth, evidence, certainty, are essentially conditioned by the Will of the first Cause."'

It is this condition in physical evidence, this dependence on the Divine Will for the continuity of physical law or physical order,that necessitates the inclusion, in the Judgment which forms the subject of the present Thesis, of the word, ordinarily, i.e. almost always, practically always, as already explained. To put it in the concrete: The human mind intuitively judges that any given physical law will continue in the future as it has continued in the past, unless the Maker should will, in some particular instance, to introduce an exception. Though, therefore, physical evidence produces certainty in the mind, i.e. an absence of practical doubt; nevertheless, physical is inferior to metaphysical certitude, because, (as has been already remarked), the latter is absolute; while the former is essentially conditioned.

DIFFICULTIES.

I. Against the truth of the present Proposition it may be urged, that the declaration is entirely based on the hypothesis of the real objective existence of the material world. But, if the contrary hypothesis should prove true, and it should turn out that the socalled things of sense are merely subjective impressions of the human spirit, self-caused; then, the argument would break down. The above assertion is thus explained. The demonstration in proof of the Thesis proceeds from a minor Premiss which supposes, in the case of physical law, an external imponent of the law, on whose will it depends for its constancy. In the instance of natural impulsion, it supposes a Creator Who is able to hinder such natural impulsion from evolving into act. But such a supposition evidently depends upon a previous Judgment touching the objective reality of sensile things themselves. Once, therefore, invalidate the truth of the Premiss; the demonstration falls by its own weight. Further: If the phenomena of sense are purely a creation of the mind, their evidence and certitude will absolutely depend upon human thought; in other words, physical evidence and certitude, (and, consequently,

1 Evidence and Certainty in their relation to Conceptual Truth, pp. 35-38.

the value of experimental Judgments), will resolve themselves into the mind's consciousness and cognition of its own ideas. Once more: If the universe, spiritual and corporal, is nothing but an evolution of the absolute,-if the whole is really and objectively identical with the one, the evolution will be as immutable, as eternal, as necessary, as the evolved; and so-called physical law will claim to itself an evidence and certitude that are, strictly speaking, metaphysical. It follows, further, that the proposed Principle is not an analytical Judgment; because the predicate is not necessarily contained in the idea of the subject. For agency according to a physical law or in obedience to a natural impulsion is not essentially included in the idea of sensile phenomena. If it were, idealism would be in open contradiction with an intuition of the understanding; and this must not be assumed too lightly.

ANSWER. First of all, with respect to all these objections, it is to be observed in general; (a) That the metaphysical science presupposes many truths, already demonstrated or declared in ideology and natural philosophy. Now, in the former the infallibility of the senses as the material media of cognition is discussed and, so far as may be, proved. In cosmology, the falsity of the various theories of idealism is demonstratively exposed. The question of pantheism will occupy our attention later on in natural Theology. (b) A Judgment cannot reasonably be denied a place among analytical Principles, merely because it does not satisfy the demands of theories which are repugnant to the common sense of mankind and are perpetually involved in patent self-contradictions. Why should one doubt whether the Judgment that three and three make six is analytical, because a paradoxical writer has suggested that, perhaps, in some possible state of intellectual existence, three and three might make seven?

Now, to consider the objections separately :—

i. It is asserted that, if the so-called visible universe should turn out to be nothing more than a series of subjective impressions, the argument that has been developed in the declaration of the Thesis would break down. Let us suppose, then, for the moment, that the theory in question is true; and see whether the above assertion holds good. No one can doubt that there are sensations which are pronouncedly disagreeable; as, for instance, sensations of excessive cold or heat,-sensations connected with certain supposed draughts of medicine, he sensation of toothache or of having a supposed tooth

supposedly extracted,-sensations of phenomenal whipping, abscission of the leg, and the like. Moreover, every one is supremely conscious within himself, that, if he could but have his way, he would at once only too gladly rid himself of these subjective impressions. But, if so; nothing can be plainer than the fact, that these sensations are not in his own power. If, however, they merely depended for their origin upon the activity of his own soul, it stands to reason that they would be absolutely in his own power, whether to awaken or to repress. This conclusion is confirmed on other grounds. It continuously happens that, when one man experiences a certain defined series of sensations, all his neighbours find themselves subjected to the same. Thomas, for instance, feels on a sudden certain sensations of rain; and he finds that others complain of a like sensation. He thereupon has the sensation of a phenomenal umbrella in his phenomenal hand; and so, it would seem, have his neighbours. Therefore, these sensations could hardly be the production of one individual soul; but neither of the whole collection. For one and all desire to be rid of them, if they could. Well then, (supposing, for the sake of argument, that these sensations are so purely subjective as to claim no correlative object outside themselves), certainly, they are not self-originated. They must have been evoked by some external agent, as Malebranche has imagined. But there is a manifest constancy of order in these subjective impressions. For instance, whenever I have the sensation of a thermometer at 10° Fahrenheit, I find it invariably accompanied by a sensation of sharp cold, unless I happen to be provided with the additional sensation of a fire. Again: The agent who has forced such sensations on the soul must be endowed with intellect and, consequently, with free-will; not only because order, (as has been already remarked), connotes intellect, but also because it is repugnant that anything but spirit should be able to create unobjective representations in a spirit. Therefore, the demonstration of the Thesis remains as cogent as before. Let us, however, in conclusion assume (again, for argument's sake) the absurd hypothesis, that these sensations are the simple self-evolved creations of the human soul; even then, the demonstration would remain unshaken. For there is at all events a well established order in those sensations and a continuity of order. Furthermore: The human soul is gifted with free-will; so that, in accordance with the hypothesis, it could break in on the order and nature of sensations on a given occasion, if it pleased. The only resulting difference

would be, that, according to sane teaching, the fact is conditioned by the Divine Will, whereas in this last hypothesis it would be conditioned by the human will.

ii. As to the various elaborate systems of German idealism and theories of the absolute, little count need be made of any objections to be derived from them. For they expressly, and often confessedly, contain such combinations of manifold contradictories, that they may be safely abandoned to their own unintelligibility. That difficulties against the truth of the present Thesis can be extracted from theories which identify the one and the many, the necessary and the contingent, mind and matter, being and absolute nothingness, will cause little or no surprise. Nevertheless, thus much may be said, that the self-evolutions, or positions, of the absolute are acknowledged to be conditioned; while the absolute is avowedly unconditioned, as its name implies. Those conditions are constant and continuous, and are evidently imposed, somehow or other, on the conditioned. Wherefore, the law of continuity assumes, in such philosophical systems, a more strictly logical universality than is here claimed for it.

iii. To the last argument it will suffice in reply to say, that the Judgment in question is an analytical Principle,-that it has been shown, by careful analysis, how agency according to natural impulsion or a physical law involves in its concept the notion of a constant order and of a law of continuity (which is all that is required to exhibit the analytical nature of the Judgment; while its application to sensile phenomena is reserved for the next Proposition), and that the confirmatory argument only concerns those who, unlike ourselves, are minded to rescue these idealistic theories from the charge of opposing themselves to the axioms of common sense and the first principles of philosophy.

II. It may, further, be urged against the present Proposition, that the Judgment therein contained cannot be an analytical Principle, because its quantity is particular, not universal; and no particular Judgment can of itself be analytical. It is true that it may become so, as subaltern to a universal; but there is no pretension here to any such position. The Minor of the proof is obvious; for the adverb, ordinarily, i.e. nearly always, evidently limits the composition of the predicate with the subject.

ANSWER. It must be categorically denied that the said Judgment