3. What is the origin of the external world?

And of course it is evident that if the first question is answered in the negative, metaphysical science is arrested on the threshold. If it is decided that man can know nothing certainly, it is useless to go on to enquire about anything.

Of the existence of our own mind we are assured by consciousness; and consciousness is evidence which even the metaphysician must sustain as sufficient. Cogito, ergo sum, may not be reasoning; but it states an ultimate fact. Consciousness assures us of the existence of our own mind, and of the sequence of moods and feelings in it: and there Mr. Lewes holds we must stop; we have no metaphysical certitude of anything further. The system of common sense says-No: we must take the first step out of ourselves without exact reasoning, but on the authority of something as irresistible; and once we get beyond the limit of our own consciousness, we have all the universe before us into which to enquire.

If any man were to tell a person of ordinary intelligence, not bewildered by metaphysical reasonings, that we have no ground at all for believing in the existence of an external world, that representative person would probably regard his informant as a fool or a knave. He would say, Are there not trees, and fields, and houses, and men, and countless interests beginning and hinging on these seen realities, around me day by day? So far from feeling it easy to realise the existence of a world of mind, and hard to realise that of a world of matter, most men could testify from their own experience that

the difficulty is all the other way.

The Christian's

prayer is for grace to walk by faith, and not by sight." The material things and interests amid which we dwell are only too successful in crowding out of the soul the care and the remembrance of the things which are

not seen.'

Yet it is not a quibble, but an incontestable truth, that all we have truly indisputable evidence of, is the existence of mind, and conditions of mind. All, except the universal sceptic, or the absolute nihilist, believe in the existence of their own mind and of its passing moods. How, then, do we know of the existence of an external world? Thus : Amid the successive states of our mind, there are certain states, termed states of sensation, which somehow we have got into the way of referring for their causes to things beyond our own personality. And not only do we think that these states of mind are caused by things beyond ourselves, but that these give us information as to the nature and qualities of these outward things. Thus, the idea or impression of redness or roundness is only in the mind; but we voluntarily and inevitably judge that this idea or impression is the result of something without; and, likewise, that this something without is red or round. In short, the inevitable belief of all unsophisticated men. everywhere has been, that from phenomena we can reason to noumena, and that things are in themselves what they seem to us.

The teaching of the common-sense school is this : that along with the purely passive state of mind which is termed sensation, there goes an intellectual act which

is termed perception, which consists in a necessary reference of the sensation for its cause, (1) to something beyond our own mind; (2) to some special external object: (3) of whose qualities we regard the sensation it conveys as making us in some degree aware.

But the question comes-If all that you are conscious of is states of the mind, how can you know that these states are the result of causes external ? Was not Bishop Berkeley right when he said that all we are sure of is mind, and states of mind, and that there is no such thing as matter at all? And was not Hume's more sweeping scepticism just the fair inference from the fact which all admit? In the words of Mr. Lewes,

As I cannot transcend the sphere of my consciousness, I can never know things except as they act upon me-as they affect my consciousness. In other words, a knowledge of the external world otherwise than as it appears to my sense, which transforms and distorts it, is impossible.

While other schools have laboriously sought to explain all this, the common-sense school have taken the ground that the circumstances need, as they admit of, no explanation. Our perception of an external world is an ultimate fact, upon which reasoning is thrown away. By the make of our being, we must believe in a world beyond ourselves; and it is certainly much more likely that sense will inform us rightly, than that (according to Mr. Lewes's gratuitous and groundless assumption) it will transform and distort' the notions it conveys to us. What resemblance there may be

between the notion conveyed to us by sensational perception, and the thing itself of which we have the perception, we cannot, indeed, certainly know. It is conceivable that the phenomenon may be something very different from the noumenon. That which gives us the impression that it is a tree, may be something very different from what it seems. That which gives us the impression that it is a page of Fraser's Magazine, may be something else in fact. All we can say of the supposition is, that it is properly incredible. No man can think so. But reasoning in the case is futile. The purpose of reasoning is to show that which is false to be absurd; and the sceptic's supposition is absurd already, before reasoning has touched it. And although sensations may not resemble their external causes, still they may suggest to us the truth as to these external causes. A black-edged letter does not resemble a friend's death, though it correctly informs us of it.

The common-sense philosophy admits that there is no precise metaphysical proof of an external world, its objects and their qualities; but it holds that common sense affords us evidence quite as cogent and indubitable as metaphysical proof. And upon this point all men are virtually and practically agreed. The sceptic lays the emphasis on the lack of metaphysical proof; the common-sense philosophy lays the emphasis upon the inevitable necessity of believing without metaphysical proof. As was said by Dr. Thomas Brown, 'Yes, Reid bawled out we must believe in an outward world; but added, in a whisper, we can give no reason for our belief. Hume bawls out, we can give no reason for

such a notion; and whispers, I own we cannot get rid

of it.'

And our readers will probably believe that there can be no better refutation of a doctrine than just to feel that to go out from our chamber into the free air, and to look around on the trees, and fields, and hedges, blows the doctrine away into annihilation. We cannot help believing that these are trees, and fields, and hedges, just as they seem to us, notwithstanding Mr. Lewes's declaration that they are distorted and deformed by the misrepresentations of sense. And why distorted and deformed? If there be things external at all, what earthly reason is there for fancying that they are in any respect other than they seem? More organs of sense might show us that outward things possess qualities which are now unrevealed to us; but is there the remotest probability that these additional senses would contradict the assurances of

those which we already possess? If we find the metaphysician who professes to disbelieve the existence of anything external to himself; or to believe that he may indeed be living in an outward world, but one composed of shams and delusions placed there to delude him without aim or end; yet conducting himself like other men-interested in politics, sharp as to money, conscious of the existence and qualities of his dinner, his garden, his servants, his books, his easy chair—it follows certainly that the metaphysician does believe in the existence of external nature, and does believe that things are what they seem. Dreary beyond imagining would the belief be, if the belief could be at