uman consciousness: it examines our fundamental beliefs,
but originates none of them; it discerns the elements and sources of
certainty, but can neither produce nor alter them. Its sole province is
to examine and report. If Certitude, in the philosophical sense of it,
belongs to the _reflex_, Certainty, in the popular sense, belongs to the
_direct_ and _spontaneous_, operations of the human mind. We see and
believe, we remember and believe, we compare and believe, we hear and
believe, and that, too, with a feeling of confidence which needs no
argument to confirm it, and to which all the philosophy in the world
could impart no additional strength. Certitude is not the creation of
Philosophy, but the object of its study; it exists independently of
Science, and is only recognized by it; and it would still exist as a
constituent and indestructible element of human consciousness were
Metaphysics scattered to the wind.

It appears, again, to have been assumed in some recent treatises, that
Certitude belongs only to that portion of truth the denial of which
would imply a contradiction, or amount to the annihilation of reason. Is
it, then, to be restricted to _necessary_ and _absolute_, as contrasted
with _contingent_ and _relative_ truths? Am I not as _certain_ that I
see four objects before me, as that two and two make four? Yet the
former is a _contingent_, the latter a _necessary_ truth. Is not my
personal consciousness infallibly certain? And yet can it be said to
belong to the head of necessary truth? Surely Certitude is unduly
restricted when we exclude from it many of our surest and strongest
convictions, which relate to truths attested by experience, but the
denial of which would involve no contradiction.

The question has been still further complicated by extreme opinions of
another kind. It seems to have been assumed that there can be no
Certitude, unless we can explain the _rationale_ of our knowledge, and
even account for the objects of our knowledge by tracing them up to
their First Cause, as the ground and reason of their existence.[236]
Now, if the question were, Can you account for your own existence, or
for the existence of the world around you, without having recourse to a
supreme First Cause? we would answer, No: but if the question be, Can
there be any Certitude prior to the idea of God, not deduced from it,
and capable of existing without it? we would answer, Yes: the little
child is certain of its mother