untrue; and consequently, though the recognition of their truth is belief, in the sense of being a recognition of something as true which is not within the sphere of immediate consciousness, yet it is perhaps not to be regarded as in any degree approaching to the nature of faith.

and do not approach to faith.

But this remark applies only to our belief in the principles of the abstract sciences. It does not apply to the belief and knowledge that we have respecting anything that has existence. All recollection of the past, and Belief in the past, all expectation of the future, involve belief which is in the future, some degree of the nature of faith. And if this is true of and the external, the memory of the past and the expectation of the future, it is also true of the perception of that which is external to faith. to us; for, without going into the question of the nature of our idea of substance, it is obvious that merely momentary impressions on the sight or on any other sense, unconnected with any memory of the past or any expectation of the future, could not give origin to the belief in an external world.

Let us speak first of memory.

the trust

The knowledge that memory gives, is knowledge to the Belief in truth of which no witness is borne by immediate conscious- worthiness ness; and such knowledge consequently implies belief- of memory. the belief in the trustworthiness of memory in other words, the belief that our recollections correspond to past realities. This belief is instinctive. It is an ultimate fact of mind, additional to, and distinct from, the mere capacity for feeling.

But the belief that a recollection corresponds with a Belief in past reality implies more than the belief itself. It is im- personal identity possible to say, "I had a feeling an hour ago which I have involved in this, now no longer," without implying that "I, who had a feeling an hour ago which I have no longer, am nevertheless the same person." Thus the truth of our own personal identity through time and change is made known to us. It is made known to us in memory; but it is an ultimate truth; and unless we instinctively believed it, we

I "Our belief in the veracity of memory is evidently ultimate." (Mill's Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy.)

and made

conscious

could have no sense of any past reality to which memory bears witness. These two truths, of the trustworthiness of memory in bearing witness to past realities, and our own personal identity through time and change, each involves and implies the truth of the other.

The truth of our personal identity is a purely metaphyknown by sical truth: that is to say, it is borne witness to by conness only. sciousness only, and is in no sense a fact of observation. We could not if we would get rid of all the metaphysical elements of our thoughts; and the belief in this metaphysical truth of our continued personal identity underlies our entire mental life from the earliest dawn of consciousness.

Belief in the uni

formity of the order of nature.

The next of the natural beliefs of which we have to speak is connected rather with the external world than with the world of consciousness. I mean our spontaneous confidence in the order of nature. This is not only, as it is usually stated, an expectation that the future will continue to resemble the past. It has not necessarily anything to do with past or future. It is, that similar consequents I will always be found to follow similar antecedents, and that similar circumstances will always be found to accompany similar circumstances. All reasoning whatever reing re- specting that which has actual existence, as distinguished specting that which from the abstractions of logic and mathematics, is based on has exist- this belief:—whether the subject of the reasoning is future, plies this. as in astronomical predictions: past, as in the questions of

All reason

ence im

It does

geology present in time though out of sight, as when we reason concerning the constitution of the centre of the earth or inaccessible to sense though accessible to reason, the future. as when we reason concerning the laws of force or the nature of luminous waves.

not refer only to

It is not

due to ex

perience.

This belief in the uniformity of the order of nature is an ultimate fact of mind. It is not produced by experience; on the contrary, it anticipates experience.*

It is thought by many that this belief in the uniformity of the order of nature is a mere consequence of experience 1 See the Essay on Personal Identity appended to Butler's "Analogy of Religion." 2 See the quotation from Bain, p. 75, note.

producing mental habit.1 We are accustomed to find the order of nature uniform, and we therefore expect always to find it so. But this is no explanation at all. The question is, how we are able to reason from known things to unknown things; why we believe, and believe truly, that the data of our experience are applicable to the solution of questions respecting things of which, by the terms of the case, we have not yet any experience: and the answer is, that we believe in the accustomed order of nature obtaining among things of which we have no experience, because we are familiar with it among those of which we have experience. Surely this is no explanation. Mental habit, or, what is the same thing, the association of ideas, cannot generate belief; it may, no doubt, determine particular beliefs, but it cannot originate the tendency and the power to believe: just as all force acts under the laws of motion, yet the laws of motion will not account for the origin of force. Mental habit will account for the association between the thoughts of two things, but it will not account for the belief that the things are themselves invariably or generally associated, because it will not account for the sense of reality external to the mind. Suppose for instance that lightning has been in our experience followed by thunder so often that we always think of thunder when we see lightning. This is a case of association of ideas: experience, acting through the law of habit, is adequate to ideas alone account for it; but how can this account for the belief produce that lightning will be followed by thunder? Mere habit belief. cannot account for the step from thoughts to things-for the association of ideas to the belief in the association of the corresponding things.2

Associa

tion of

cannot

Should we

expect to

uniform if

If it is asked, whether we should have this spontaneous find nature expectation of finding uniformity in the order of nature if it were the order of nature were not really uniform? I reply that not so? the mind is part of the order of nature, and has been

1 Or what is technically called the "association of ideas." The association of ideas takes place by reason of habit, and it is only a case of the law of habit. See "Habit and Intelligence," Chapter 31.

:

See Note A at end of preceding chapter. See also Note at end of this Chapter.

H

developed in accordance therewith:-the mind, like everything else that lives, is of necessity developed in accordance with the laws of that nature which surrounds it: the uniformity of nature, like the infinity of space and time, is a fact of the universe which has become conscious of itself in the brain of man. But if the order of nature were not uniform, we should not expect to find it uniform : because the mind, being a part of that order, would have developed received a different development from that which it actually has received.

In that

case the

mind would

have been

under

different

laws.

We consequently conclude that the belief in the veracity of memory and the belief in the uniformity of the order of nature, though they receive confirmation at every moment of our waking lives, are not in their origin due to experience, but to the spontaneous tendencies of the mind. This, it must be understood, is not because experience is originate insufficient to produce these beliefs, but because experience alone cannot of itself produce any belief whatever.

Belief cannot

in experience.

in the

themselves.

It has been already remarked that the spontaneous belief in the elementary truths of logic and mathematics carries its own justification with it, and is consequently not of the The beliefs nature of faith. But the same is not true of the sponveracity of taneous belief in the veracity of memory and in the unimemory formity of the order of nature. The two kinds of belief and in the order of differ fundamentally. The belief in the truths of logic and nature do not justify mathematics is a rational belief; those truths cannot be imagined not to be true. The belief in the trustworthiness of memory and the belief in the uniformity of nature, on the contrary, are not in the highest sense of the word rational they do not carry their own justification with They may them; and though their truth cannot be doubted, they may be imagined to be untrue. That is to say, it is impossible to imagine that a contradiction is true, or that time or space has a limit: but it is possible to imagine that memory is an illusion, and everything to which it bears witness unreal: or that the uniformity of nature will be suddenly interrupted, so that the past will be utterly unlike the future, and all experience will be inapplicable. Further the former class of beliefs, the logical and the

be ima

gined

untrue.

:

lute, only

derant.

mathematical, are absolute beliefs: the latter class, on the They are contrary, the belief in the veracity of memory and in the not absouniformity of nature, are not absolute but only preponde- preponrant. That is to say, we believe that the axioms of logic and mathematics are true without any possible exception: but we do not so believe in the other class of truths: we believe in the veracity of memory as a general truth, for if we did not we should not believe in the reality of the past but we distrust memory in particular cases. So with the belief in the uniformity of nature: we feel no practical doubt of it, yet we cannot say that there is anything impossible in its coming to an end and no one can say that he feels any strong confidence in the present laws of nature continuing to be in force for a thousand millions. of years to come.

:

conse

verifica

Thus the two beliefs on which the whole of our external life rests: namely the belief that memory is trustworthy, or in other words that experience is true: and the belief that the order of things is and will be uniform, or in other words that experience is applicable: are both of them They are without logical justification, because they might be denied quently without contradicting any necessary law of thought: and without without the possibility of verification of any other kind, tion, because if any one were to declare his belief that all memory was an illusion, or that the laws of nature might not improbably be totally changed the next moment, there is no possible proof, whether of the demonstrative or of the experimental kind, by which he could be shown to be wrong. Many apparent proofs might be offered, but yet on they would really assume the truth of the beliefs which them all they would appear to prove. Everything in science and everything in ordinary life is verified by the assumption that those two natural beliefs are true; but they are themselves unverified. All proof, all knowledge, ultimately rest on faith. Science and faith are equally "the proof of things unseen:" things past, things future, things absent, and things invisible though present.

As Pascal pointed out long ago,1 consistent scepticism 1 See his fragment on Dogmatism and Scepticism (Pesées de Pascal.

verifica