rect knowledge-"antecedent to all Reasoning"-which has been preceded by a connotation? It is difficult to understand Mr. Mill here, unless we suppose, that, as he had laid it down that the meaning is in all cases discovered by connotation, the notion might have floated through his mind that the connotation is the meaning; thus confounding the act or process with the result obtained by it. However this may be, our clear result is this: that wherever we know any thing, we find that a mental process, beside that of mere direct perception, has preceded; and that direct Intuition, according to the principles started with, is impossible.

We are very far from supposing that this result is at all contemplated, or would be admitted, by Mr. Mill. On the contrary, as we have seen, he depends upon and refers to direct Perception for the subject-matter and ultimate foundation of all Science. This doctrine, that ultimate truths are directly perceived, is, we believe, under one form or another, common to most English and French metaphysicians. A writer in the Edinburgh Review (Vol. L., p. 196) thus states it:"Our knowledge rests ultimately on certain facts of consciousness, which, as primitive, and consequently incomprehensible, are given less in the form of cognitions than of beliefs. But if consciousness in its last analysis-in other words, if our primary experience, be a faith, the reality of our knowledge turns on the veracity of our generative beliefs. As ultimate, the quality of these beliefs cannot be inferred; their truth, however, is in the first instance to be presumed.'

The result of direct perception, therefore, according to the Inductive Theory,-must be incomprehensible and incognizable. For as these results, according to the supposition, are altogether independent of, and unmixed with, mental action, they must be purely objective, and given to it from without.

Many perceptions, however, which seem intuitive, all will allow to be in fact either inferences which habit has made rapid and easy; or else in reality included in something already known. Of the first class, namely, conclusions which are commonly mistaken for intuitions, our author (I. 7,) gives as an example our perception of distance, than which, as he remarks, nothing can seem more directly intuitive. An example of the other class of intuitions falsely so called, is given by the truths of Number: thus, that 2 + 2 4. The same is true of all intuitions of which we are conscious;-all Cognition presupposes something more than mere reception from without.

But for the present we will observe only, that if the guaranty of their truth be only an uncomprehended and incomprehensible feeling, which we know leads us astray very often, and of which we can have in no case any ulterior test-the intuitions would seem to form a very unstable foundation for Science. And here we must notice a great inconsistency in the procedure of the philosophers of the Inductive School: namely, that while they claim in behalf of their own system unhesitating confidence in intuitive beliefs, they will not allow this to others. Now, if these intuitive beliefs are to pass unquestioned, as truths, it is evidently impossible to draw the line between those to be admitted as of scientific validity, and those to be rejected. Whatever we fully believe, then, is true. There is no test but subjective persuasion. Then the visions and prophecies of clairvoyants and seers of various kinds must be allowed as scientific truth. And even if the fact of full belief in their own assertions be denied in these cases; or if the belief of all mankind be required, it will at least be admitted that some undoubted blunders have, in the history of Science, been held with as full and universal belief as any scientific truth at the present day. The believers in the Ptolemaic System no doubt as fully believed that the sun moved round the earth, as we now do the converse. Now the important point is, not that we believe, ever so strongly, but that we have reason to believe.

If passive Belief were the source of knowledge, not only would all men of equal acuteness of sense be on a par in scientific capability, but the brutes also would stand on a level with Man; for they also have feelings and sensations; and what we call Instinct is precisely "incomprehensible" or uncomprehended Knowledge.

This

Our result, therefore, that this so-called direct Knowledge is no Knowledge at all, though deduced from our author's premises against his intention, justifies itself from the absurdities to which the opposite supposition necessarily leads. It is moreover confirmed by Mr. Mill's subsequent admission, that we cannot in any case know any thing of objects themselves, but only the impressions or representations in the mind. point, he says, (I. 78,) "is one upon which those [idealist] metaphysicians are now very generally considered to have made out their case; namely, that all we know of objects is the sensations which they give us, and the order of the occur rence of those sensations.' Now as 66 sensations are states of the sentient mind, not states of the body, as distinguished from

it," (I. 68,) this would certainly seem equivalent to saying, that of the outward world we know absolutely nothing at all, directly, but only as represented or conceived by the mind. This is not only involved, but openly stated, in the theory of Phenomena; yet we find writers on Metaphysics constantly speaking of Phenomena as if they were things; of a more airy and unsubstantial sort, indeed, but things still; having a material existence, though wanting the attributes of Matter: instead of being the results of a mental process. Thus, when it is said that Phenomena have no existence out of the mind, this is taken to be a denial of all objective Reality. Whereas, on the contrary, if the objects of Sensation were Reality,-Sensation being, of itself, cognizant only of abstracts, (as we have already seen,) and not of Reality, evidently we should be cut off from all objective Knowledge. What we perceive is undoubtedly the thing itself; but the representation is no thing, and what is present in the mind is not the thing, but the representation. So that we are not to fancy things existing in our minds, as fragments of truth out of which Science is to be built up by mechanical aggregation. In what we call facts, and in all general names, (provided they stand for any thing, and are not merely repeated by rote,) the outward world is seen metamorphosed; the directness of the sensuous impression being removed by Reflection. It is true that there exists spontaneously in the mind much that resembles the results of Cognition, and may be called immediate Knowledge, but differs from Knowledge properly so called, in this, that it exists unknown to the mind itself, and is manifested only in action. This immediate Knowledge, or Instinct, shows in its results a resemblance to the products of conscious Reason; as, for instance, in the knowledge of geometry shown in the construction of the bee's cell. This knowledge is displayed certainly by the bee, but unconsciously; so that it cannot be said to belong to the bee, but is given to the insect from without.

But when we speak of science and method, and the moment we reflect upon the nature of our Knowledge, that moment it ceases to be instinctive. It is no longer Knowledge, merely, but our Knowledge, and thenceforth nothing can properly bear the name, except the results of conscious mental

action.

Thus it is to the second of the two sources above mentioned, that which involves a productive action of the mind-namely,

Reasoning or Inference that we are referred for the origin of all our Knowledge; and Logic, therefore, as the Science of Reasoning, will be synonymous with Philosophy, or the Science of Knowledge.

"Most of the propositions which we believe," says Mr. Mill, (I. 216,) "are not believed on their own evidence, but on the ground of something previously assented to, and from which they are said to be inferred." "To infer a proposition from a previous proposition or propositions, is to reason, in the most extensive sense of the term." "Reasoning... is popularly said to be of two kinds reasoning from particulars to generals, and reasoning from generals to particulars; the former being called Induction, the latter Ratiocination, or Syllogism."

And first, of the syllogism. "To a legitimate syllogism it is essential that there should be three and no more than three propositions; namely, the conclusion, or proposition to be proved, and two other propositions which together prove it, and which are called the premisses. It is essential that there should be three and no more than three terms; namely, the subject and predicate of the conclusion, and another called the middle term, which must be found in both premisses, since it is by means of it that the two terms are to be connected together. The predicate of the conclusion is called the major term of the syllogism; the subject of the conclusion is called the minor term." "One premiss, the major, is an universal proposition, and according as this is affirmative or negative, the conclusion is so too. All ratiocination, therefore, starts from a general proposition, principle, or assumption." "The other premiss is always affirmative, and asserts that something belongs to the class respecting which something was affirmed or denied in the major premiss. That is, the subject of the major premiss always includes that of the minor; so that the minor must always be relatively particular. Thus even where it is universal in its form, as in the syllogism, All men are mortalall kings are men-therefore, &c.,-the minor in fact only specifies something already contained in the major: ❝ all kings" being contained in "all men." So that what is said (I. 275,) about the minor as affirming a new case, must be rejected as inconsistent with the general principle; unless by a new case he means only a case not before thought of. The conclusion must therefore be already contained in the major; being merely pointed out by the syllogism. Thus "it must be

granted, that in every syllogism, considered as an argument to prove the conclusion, there is a petitio principii." Accordingly he allows, that "no reasoning from generals to particulars can, as such, prove any thing; since from a general principle you cannot infer any particulars but those which the principle itself assumes as foreknown." "But this is in fact to say, that nothing ever was or can be proved by syllogism, which was not known, or assumed to be known, before." All real accession to our knowledge, then, must be contained in the general proposition, the major premiss. But (I. 249,) "whence do we derive our knowledge of the general truth? No supernatural aid being supposed, the answer must be, by observation." "Now all which man can observe are individual cases. From these all general truths must be drawn, and into them they may be again resolved; for a general truth is but an aggregate of particular truths; a comprehensive expression, by which an indefinite number of individual facts are affirmed or denied at once." Thus "general propositions are merely registers of such inferences already made, and short formula for making more. The major premiss of a syllogism, consequently, is a formula of this description; and the conclusion is not an inference drawn from the formula, but an inference drawn according to the formula; the real logical antecedent, or premisses, being the particular facts from which the general proposition was collected by induction." But if the syllogism be only an explication of what already exists in the premisses, or a test of such an explication, its office must be an altogether dependent and secondary one, and it cannot take any part in the original investigation of truth. For if Truth consists of an aggregate of facts, and if the syllogism neither collects nor aggregates the facts, clearly nothing is left for it beyond. examination of the bearings and consequences of truths already elsewhere obtained. Mr. Mill accordingly assigns to the syllogism altogether a subordinate place in the system. "Its function," says he, (I. 261,) "is interpretation,' and its chief use is, that it affords "a set of precautions for correctly reading the general propositions or records of facts."

To obtain general propositions, therefore, as well as par ticular facts, we must resort to the other branch of Inference; namely, Induction. "What Induction is, therefore, and what conditions render it legitimate, cannot but be deemed the main question of the science of logic the question which includes all others."