This propofition, however, fo far differs, in my apprehenfion, from others of the fame order, that I cannot avoid confidering the oppofite afsertion as not only falfe, but contradictory; but I do not pretend to explain the ground of this difference.

THE faith we give to memory may be thought, on a fuperficial view, to be refolvable into consciousness, as well as that we give to the immediate impreffions of fenfe. But on a little attention one may eafily perceive the difference. To believe the report of our fenfes doth, indeed, commonly imply, to believe the exiftence of certain external and corporeal objects, which give rife to our particular fenfations. This, I acknowledge, is a principle which doth not fpring from consciousness, (for consciousness cannot extend beyond fenfation) but from common fenfe, as well as the affurance we have in the report of memory. But this was not intended to be included under the fecond branch of intuitive evidence. By that firm belief in fenfe, which I there refolved into consciousness, I meant no more than to fay, I am certain that I fee, and feel, and think, what I actually fee, and feel, and think. As in this I pronounce only

I 2

only concerning my own prefent feelings, whofe effence confifts in being felt, and of which I am at prefent confcious, my conviction is reducible to this axiom, or coincident with it, It is im• poffible for a thing to be and not to be at the fame time.' Now when I fay, I truft entirely to the clear report of my memory, I mean a good deal more than, I am certain that my memory gives fuch a report, or reprefents

things in fuch a manner,' for this conviction I have indeed from confcioufnefs, but I mean, I am certain that things happened heretofore at fuch a time, in the precife manner in which I

now remember that they then happened.' Thus there is a reference in the ideas of memory to former fenfible impreffions, to which there is nothing analogous in fenfation. At the fame time, it is evident, that remembrance is not always accompanied with this full conviction. To defcribe, in words, the difference between those lively fignatures of memory, which command. an unlimited affent, and thofe fainter traces which raife opinion only, or even doubt, is perhaps impracticable; but no man ftands in need of fuch affiftance to enable him in fact to diftinguish them, for the direction of his own judgment and conduct. Some may imagine,

that

that it is from experience we come to know what faith in every cafe is due to memory. But it will appear more fully afterwards, that unless we had implicitly relied on the diftinct and vivid informations of that faculty, we could not have moved a ftep towards the acquifition of experience. It muft, however, be admitted, that experience is of use in affifting us to judge concerning the more languid and confufed fuggeftions of memory; or, to fpeak more properly, concerning the reality of those things, of which we ourselves are doubtful, whether we remember them or not,

In regard to the primary truths of this order, it may be urged, that it cannot be affirmed of them all at least, as it may of the axioms in mathematics, or the affurances we have from confciousness, that the denial of them implies a manifeft contradiction. It is, perhaps, phyfically poffible, that the courfe of nature will be inverted the very next moment; that my memory is no other than a delirium, and my life a dream; that all is mere illufion; that I am the only being in the univerfe, and that there is no fuch thing as body. Nothing can be juster than the reply given by Buffier, "It must be owned,"

fays he," that to maintain propofitions, the re"verse of the primary truths of common fenfe, "doth not imply a contradiction, it only im

plies infanity." But if any perfon, on account of this difference in the nature of these two claffes of axioms, thould not think the term intuitive fo properly applied to the evidence of the last mentioned, let him denominate it, if he please, instinctive: I have no objection to the term; nor do I think it derogates in the leaft from the dignity, the certainty, or the importance of the truths themfelves. Such inftincts are no other than the oracles of eternal wifdom.

FOR, let it be observed farther, that axioms of this laft kind are as effential to moral reafoning, to all deductions concerning life and exiftence, as thofe of the firft kind are to the fciences of arithmetic and geometry. Perhaps it will appear afterwards, that, without the aid of fome of them, thefe fciences themfelves would be utterly inacceffible to us. Befides, the mathematical axioms can never extend their influence beyond the precincts of abftract knowledge, in regard to number and extenfion, or affift us

• Premiéres Véritez, Part I. Chap. 11.

in the discovery of any matter of fact: whereas, with knowledge of the latter kind, the whole conduct and bufinefs of human life is principally and intimately connected. All reafoning neceffarily supposes that there are certain principles in which we must acquiefce, and beyond which we cannot go, principles clearly difcernible by their own light, which can derive no additional evidence from any thing besides. On the contrary fuppofition, the investigation of truth would be an endless and a fruitlefs task; we should be eternally proving, whilft nothing could ever be proyed; because, by the hypothefis, we could never afcend to premises which require no proof. "If there be no first truths," fays the author lately quoted, "there can be no "fecond truths, nor third, nor indeed any "truth at all*,"

So much for intuitive evidence, in the ex- . tenfive meaning which hath here been given to that term, as including every thing whose evidence refults from the fimple contemplation of the ideas or perceptions which form the propofition under confideration, and requires not the intervention of any third idea as a medium of