an neither feel nor think, and
the universe is to him as though it did not exist. Considering the
progress of his sensational powers--his sight, hearing, touch,
etc.--these, as his cycle advances to its maximum, become, by nature or
by education, more and more perfect; but never, at the best, as the
ancient philosophers well knew, are they trustworthy. And so of his
intellectual powers. They, too, begin in feebleness and gradually
expand. The mind alone is no more to be relied on than the organs of
sense alone. If any doubt existed on this point, the study of the
phenomena of dreaming is sufficient to remove it, for dreaming manifests
to us how wavering and unsteady is the mind in its operations when it is
detached from the solid support of the organs of sense. How true is the
remark of Philo the Jew, that the mind is like the eye; for, though it
may see all other objects, it cannot see itself, and therefore cannot
judge of itself. And thus we may conclude that neither are the senses to
be trusted alone, nor is the mind to be trusted alone. In the conjoint
action of the two, by reason of the mutual checks established, a far
higher degree of certainty is attained to, yet even in this, the utmost
vouchsafed to the individual, there is not, as both Greeks and Indians
ascertained, an absolute sureness. It was the knowledge of this which
extorted from them so many melancholy complaints, which threw them into
an intellectual despair, and made them, by applying the sad
determination to which they had come to the course of their daily life,
sink down into indifference and infidelity.

But yet there is something more in reserve for man. Let him cast off the
clog of individuality, and remember that he has race connexions--connexions
which, in this matter of a criterion of truth, indefinitely increase his
chances of certainty. If he looks with contempt on the opinions of his
childhood, with little consideration on those of his youth, with distrust
on those of his manhood, what will he say about the opinions of his race?
Do not such considerations teach us that, through all these successive
conditions, the criterion of truth is ever advancing in precision and
power, and that its maximum is found in the unanimous opinion of the whole
human race?

[Sidenote: Though no absolute criterion exists, a practical one does.]

[Sidenote: The maximum of certainty in the human race.]

Upon these principles I believe that, though we have not