brass circles all is now at work; and this spectacle of accordant rotation awakens a new feeling of satisfaction. There is before me not only a perfect fitting of parts, but a fitness of all the parts-not one excepted-to promote this tranquil and uniform scheme of revolution; and, moreover, beyond this fitness there is order, for there is a series of adjustments, as well as a collocation of them. The hands, for whatever purpose, traverse the figured dial, the one at twelve times the speed of the other. At equal distances, as measured and figured on the dial, the bell is struck, and it is struck as many times as the hands have made revolutions, or have traversed equal parts of the circle.

139. Let it now be by chance that I notice the agreement of the motions of this machine with the diurnal revolution of the earth: the machine I find to be in accordance with the planetary mechanism, and thus its purpose becomes manifest. The perception of this purpose awakens a new feeling, or it greatly enhances that which had already been excited. I now look at the machine as ONE in regard to the structure of its parts, and it is ONE also in respect of the equable movement which ensues when its moving force is brought into combination with the counteractive movement of the pendulum; and beyond this I find it to be ONE in respect of its ultimate intention or final cause; and this intention is in harmony with the mechanism of the heavens. A worthy intention, well and perfectly secured! and it yields me an aid that is inestimably important in the distribution and allotment of my labors through the day itself it is a symbol of order, and it is the source of order to those whose servant it is.

140. To note and to take account of differences is the first instinct of reason; to note and take account of a sameness connecting such differences, and reducing them to accordance, is the second instinct of reason. When the one duly follows the other, reason comes to its rest, or to its state of acquiescence; and this rest takes its character from that condition of the mind to which, at the moment, it happens to be opposed. For instance, it may be opposed to confusion or distraction; it may be opposed to the sense of contrariety, or incoherence and incongruity; or it may be opposed to doubt or to disbelief.

141. To each of these antagonisms this rest of the intellect brings relief, or it entirely composes them. Our present purpose is to show in what way the acquiescence which is obtainable from the sense of order and fitness affords a true and valid counteraction to the disquiet and the skepticism which are the fruit of metaphysical speculations, when such speculations have engaged the mind in an exclusive manner for a length of time.

VII.

GROUNDS OF CERTAINTY IN RELATION TO METAPHYS

ICAL SPECULATION.

142. As to any of those instinctive convictions or assumptions which are the basis of our intellectual structure, and from which all reasoning must take its start, it would be a mere solecism to ask for logical proof of their certainty. No meaning can attach to

the words in which such a demand might be conveyed.

143. Propositions that are indeed susceptible of logical treatment for the purpose of establishing them as certain will always contain two or more ideas, the connection between which may be shown to be such as is therein affirmed, or the contrary; but an intuition or an instinctive conviction has no constituents; it has no parts; there is nothing in it that is complex, or that implies any sort of interior relationship.

144. We believe those things which may be shown to be certain or to be probable by exhibiting their inferential connection with some other thing that has been assumed as indisputable, and which is anterior to the matter in question. But these intuitions, by the very terms in which they are conveyed, can have nothing anterior to themselves, nor can they ever come before us in the form of inferences that are logically valid. Why do you believe your own existence? There can be no room for a "why" in this case: the cogito, ERGO sum, is a mere quibble; it is an unmeaning play upon words.

145. But is this the fact, then, that, as to the certainty of our knowledge, and as to the foundations of human reason, we must be content to float over an abyss into which we dare not look, and concerning which we must ask no questions? It is even so in one sense, but it is not so in another.

146. We must have misunderstood the structure of the human intellect as an engine of thought if we have set it to work frontwise toward the elements of knowledge. In like manner we should misinterpret Nature

if, instead of digesting food, we should labor to digest elements. It is the practice of engineers, in drawing the plan and elevation of a complicated machine, to put arrows here and there upon the rotatory parts, in order to show the direction of the movement, where else it might be misunderstood. We must not set the wheels agoing as from the product toward the but as from the power toward the product.

power,

147. After all, then, and at the best, is there no certainty to be obtained in the region of mental science? Must we be content always to take things for granted? Is it in the department of mathematical science alone that absolute knowledge or full assurance is to be looked for? If it be so, our prospects are gloomy.

:

148. On what grounds do you rest this implied distinction between mathematical and mental science? You will find there is nothing valid in any such distinction. Mathematical demonstration is a process of reasoning which always flows in the descending direction it commences with principles anterior to which there is nothing that is susceptible of proof; these must be simply assumed; you must submit to take them for granted; and you must do this, not because there is nothing mysterious and perplexing imbedded in mathematical axioms-for there is-but because the human mind is furnished with no solvents for digesting these elements. Give it any sort of combination, and it will analyze it, and then go on.

149. Alike-precisely alike-in mental and in mathematical science, assurance-certainty-demonstration, and a perfect conviction of truth and reality, are to be obtained among the products of reason, but not

higher up than that level where these products begin to appear. The difference as to certainty between mental and mathematical evidence belongs to the means employed for the notation of the process and of the conclusion arrived at. We may arrive at certainty in the one department as surely as in the other; but in the one case we possess the means of noting what we have done to-day, and of finding it to-morrow, or a year hence, just what and where we left it; in the other case-more or less so-we are compelled to retrace our steps as often as we would recover precisely our former position.

150. Practically, then, what is our resource? There is a resource, and it is such that, unless the individual mind is ill constructed, or has sustained damage from some mistaken treatment, it abundantly subserves its purpose. We find what we need in that sense of FITNESS and ORDER of which just now we have spoken.

151. When proof is demanded of that first of all certainties, our own existence, it appears that the most valid answer which we can give—if it must be given with logical formality-is nothing better than a quibble-cogito, ergo sum. We may well call this grave pretense of demonstration a quibble; for, as soon as I come to attach any distinguishable meaning to the cogito, I have laid hold of whatever may be contained in the sum, and vice versa. The ergo, therefore, can express no inferential dependence of the one term upon the other.

152. If, then, I can not logically establish the certainty of my own existence at this passing moment,

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