rain besides the wetness of the streets and the turbid rush of gutters, which might equally have been produced by the bursting of a water-pipe. If we see passers-by carrying wet umbrellas, some still held above the head, our inference is strengthened by this indication, that rain, and no other cause, produced the phenomena. In like manner, the geologist casts about for other indications besides those of the subsidence of water, and as they accumulate, his conviction strengthens.

While this is the course of Science, the course of Philosophy is very different. Its inferences start from no well-grounded basis; the arches they throw are not from known fact to unknown fact, but from some unknown to some other unknown. Deductions are drawn from the nature of God, the nature of Spirit, the essences of Things, and from what Reason can postulate. Rising from such mists, the arch so brilliant to look upon is after all a rainbow, not a bridge.

To make his method legitimate, the Philosopher must first prove that a co-ordinate correspondence exists between Nature and his Intuitional Reason,* so that whatever is true of the one must be true of the other. The geologist, for example, proceeds on the assumption that the action of waters was essentially the same millions of years ago as it is in the present day; so that whatever can be positively proved of it now, may be confidently asserted of it then. He subsequently brings evidence to corroborate his assumption by showing that the assumption is necessary and competent to explain facts not otherwise to be consistently explained. But does the Philosopher stand in a similar position? Does he show any validity in his preliminary assumption? Does he produce any evidence for the existence of a nexus between his Intuitional Reason and those noumena or essences, about which he reasons; does he show the probability of there being such a correspondence between the two, that what

By Intuitional Reason I here wish to express what the Germans call Vernunft, which they distinguish from Verstand, as Coleridge tried to make Englishmen distinguish between Reason and Understanding. The term Reason is too deeply rooted in our language to be twisted into any new direction; and I hope by the unusual "Intuitional Reason" to keep the reader's attention alive to the fact that by it is designated the process of the mind engaged in transcendental inquiry.

is true of the one may be accepted as probable of the other? Nothing of the kind. He assumes that it is so. He assumes, as a preliminary to all Philosophy, that Intuitional Reason is competent to deliver verdicts, even when the evidence is entirely furnished by itself. He assumes that Intuitions are face to face with Existences, and have consequently immediate knowledge of them. But this immense assumption, this gratuitous begging of the whole question, can only be permitted after a demonstration that the contrary assumption must be false. Now it is certain that we can assume the contrary, and assume it on evidence as cogent as that which furnishes his assumption. I can assume that Intuitions are not face to face with Existences; indeed this assumption seems to me by far the most probable; and it is surely as valid as the one it opposes? I call upon the metaphysician to prove the validity of his assumption, or the invalidity of mine. I call upon him for some principle of verification. He may tell me (as in past years the Hegelians used to tell me, not without impatience) that "Reason must verify itself;" but unhappily Reason has no such power; for if it had, Philosophy would not be disputing about first principles; and when it claims the power, who is to answer for its accuracy, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? If Philosophy is possible, its only basis rests on the correspondence between Nature and Intuitional Reason. But a correct analysis of our intellectual processes will furnish a solvent which will utterly destroy the last shred of organic basis out of which Philosophy grows.

Reasoning, if I rightly apprehend it, is the same intellectual process as Perception, with this difference, that Perception is inferential respecting objects present, and Reasoning is inferential respecting objects absent. In the laxity of current language, sensations and perceptions are almost convertible terms; but if we rigorously separate from our perceptions all those elements not actually given in the momentary sensations, it will be evident that Perception is distinguished from Sensation by the addition of certain inferences: as when we perceive a substance to be hard, square, odorous, sweet, etc., from certain inferences rising out of its form, color, etc., although we do not actually touch, smell, or taste the object. What is this process of inference? It

is a presentation before the consciousness of something which has been formerly observed in conjunction with the object, and is therefore supposed to be now actually present in fact, although not present in sensation. I have no sensation of sweetness when I see the lump of sugar; but the sight of the sugar brings before my consciousness the sweetness, which the sugar will bring to my sensibility when in contact with my tongue. I perceive the sweetness; and I do this by making present to my mind what is absent from sense. I infer that the lump of white substance before me is sugar, as I infer that it rains when I see, from my window, water falling on the streets. In both cases the inference may be wrong. The white substance may be salt; the falling water may be the spray of the garden-hose. But in each and every case of Perception, a something is added to the Sensation, and that something is inferential, or the assumption of some quality present in fact which is not present in sense.

Reasoning is likewise inferential, but about objects which, although they were formerly given in sense, are now absent altogether. Reasoning is the presentation before the consciousness, of objects which, if actually present, would affect the consciousness in a similar way. It mentally supplies their existence. Thus, when from the wet streets and turbulent gutters I conclude, or infer, that it has rained, I make present to myself the phenomena of falling water in somewhat the same order as the falling water would follow if present. On closely attending to any chain of Reasoning we shall find that if it were possible to realize all the links in the chain, i. e. so to place the actual objects in their connected series that we could see them, this mental series would become a visible series, and, in lieu of reasonings, would afford direct perceptions. Good reasoning is the ideal assemblage of facts, and their re-presentation to the mind in the order of their actual series. It is seeing with the mind's eye. Bad reasoning will always be found to depend on some of the objects not being mentally present; some links in the chain are dropped or overlooked; some objects instead of being re-presented are left absent, or are presented so imperfectly that the inferences from them are as erroneous as the inferences from imperfect vision are erroneous. Bad reasoning is imperfect re-presentation.

INTRODUCTION.

This explanation of the intellectual operations is, I believe, novel; should it be accepted, it will light up many obscure questions. But for the present we must only notice its bearing on Philosophy. When the table-turners concluded that electricity was the cause of the table's movement, they did not make present to their minds the real facts of electricity and its modes of operations; otherwise they would have seen that electricity would not turn the table round, and they would have seen this almost as vividly as if a battery had been then and there applied to the table. Faraday, on the contrary, did make these facts mentally present, so as not to need the actual presence of a battery; and his correct reasoning might not be owing to any greater general vigor of ratiocination, but to his greater power of making these particular facts mentally present. Describe an invention to Dr. Neil Arnott, and he will be able to reason on its practicability almost as well as if he saw the machine in operation: because he can mentally make present to himself all the details of structure, and from these infer all the details of action, just as his direct inferences would follow the actual presentation of the objects. There are two modes of detecting false logic, and there are but two: either we must reduce the argument to a series of sensations-make the facts in question visible to sense, and show that the sequences and co-existences of these facts are not what the reasoner asserted them to be; or we must mentally supply the place of this visible demonstration, and by re-presenting the objects before the mind, see where their sequences and co-existences differ from what the reasoner asserted them to be.

If all Reasoning be the re-presentation of what is now absent but formerly was present, and can again be made present,-in other words, if the test of accurate reasoning is its reduction to fact, then is it evident that Philosophy, dealing with transcendental objects which cannot be present, and employing a Method which admits of no verification (or reduction to the test of fact) must be an impossible attempt. And if I am asked how it is that philosophers have reasoned at all on transcendental subjects, since according to my statement they could only reason by making such subjects present to their minds, the reply is that they could not, and did not, make present to their minds any

such subjects at all; the Infinite was really conceived by them as Finite, the Unconditioned as Conditioned, Spirit as Body, Noumenon as Phenomenon; for only thus were these things conceivable at all. Thus it is only possible to take the first step in Philosophy by bringing transcendental subjects within the sphere of experience, i. e. making them no longer transcendental. Thus, and thus only, is it possible for us to reason on such topics. All this will doubtless be utterly denied by metaphysicians. They proceed on the assumption that Intuitional Reason, which is independent of experience, is absolute and final in its guarantee. The validity of its conclusions is self-justified. Hegel boldly says, "Whatever is rational is real, and whatever is real is rational, das Vernünftige ist wirklich und das Wirkliche vernünftig." And writers of less metaphysical rigor frequently avow the axiom, and always imply it. Thus in a remarkable article on Sir W. Hamilton, which appeared in the Prospective Review (understood to be by Mr. James Martineau), we read that Philosophy in England has dwindled down to mere Psychology and Logic, whereas its proper business is with the notions of Time, Space, Substance, Soul, God; "to pronounce upon the validity of these notions as revelations of real Existence, and, if they be reliable, use them as a bridge to cross the chasm from relative Thought to absolute Being. Once safe across, and gazing about it in that realm, the mind stands in presence of the objects of Ontology."

"Once safe across;" this is indeed the step which constitutes the whole journey; unhappily we have no means of getting safe across; and in this helplessness we had better hold ourselves aloof from the attempt. If a man were to discourse with amplitude of detail and eloquence of conviction respecting the inhabitants of Sirius, setting forth in explicit terms what they were like, what embryonic forms they passed through, what had been the course of their social evolution and what would be its ultimate stage, we should first ask, And pray, Sir, what evidence have you for these particulars? what guarantee do you offer for, the validity of these conclusions? If he replied that Intuitional Reason assured him these things must be so from the inherent necessities of the case, he having logically evolved these conclu