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arily bound up with the constitution of the human mind. Or, as Mill puts it, "One man cannot by proclaiming with ever so much confidence that _he_ perceives an object, convince other people that they see it too.... When no claim is set up to any peculiar gift, but we are told that all of us are as capable of seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels, nay, that we actually do so, and when the utmost effort of which we are capable fails to make us aware of what we are told, we perceive this supposed universal faculty of intuition is but 'The Dark Lantern of the Spirit Which none see by but those who bear it.'" It is thus, I think, abundantly certain that the present argument must, from its very nature, be powerless as an argument to anyone save its assertor; as a matter of fact, the alleged necessity of thought is not universal; it is peculiar to those who employ the argument. And now, it is but just to go one step further and to question whether the alleged necessity of thought is, in any case and properly speaking, a _real_ necessity. Unless those who advance the present argument are the victims of some mental aberration, it is overwhelmingly improbable that their minds should differ in a fundamental and important attribute from the minds of the vast majority of their species. Or, to continue the above quotation, "They may fairly be asked to consider, whether it is not more likely that they are mistaken as to the origin of an impression in their minds, than that others are ignorant of the very existence of an impression in theirs." No doubt it is true that education and habits of thought may so stereotype the intellectual faculties, that at last what is conceivable to one man or generation may not be so to another;[2] but to adduce this consideration in this place would clearly be but to destroy the argument from the _intuitive_ necessity of believing in a God. Lastly, although superfluous, it may be well to point out that even if the impossibility of conceiving the negation of God were an universal law of human mind--which it certainly is not--the fact of his existence could not be thus proved. Doubtless it would be felt to be much more probable than it now is--as probable, for instance, if not more probable, than is the existence of an external world;--but still it would not be necessarily true. Sec. 7. The argument from the general consent of mankind is so clearly fallacious, both as to facts and princi
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