Philosophy

Front matter

7<?

or,

THE SCIENCE OF TRUTH.

Chapter I. — Numbers

1. Some Human Knowledge Exists. — Minds, Things,

Words ; the Factors of Knowledge . .15

2. Three Classes of Objectors. — The Materialist, the

Idealist, the Antithesis Philosophers . .18

3. The Construction of Numbers . . .19

XIV CONTENTS.

PAGE

4. Unity, Equality, Addition, Cavilling . . 22

5. Mr. Mill, and Numbers in the Abstract . . 24

6. Abstraction, Induction, Causation, Numbers, &c. . 28

7. Geometrical Abstractions, Lines, Surfaces . . 32

8. Numbers the Foundation of all Accurate Know-

Chapter II. — The Three Classes of Objectors. — The Intellectual Unity in Trinity

1. The Antithesis or Subject + Object Scheme of

2. Words, not Ideas, Factors in Knowledge . . 42

3. Fundamental Antithesis founded in Mistaken Intui-

4. Materialist and Idealist Objectors, the only Sub-

stantial Objectors . . . .46

The Materialist Objection . . .48

5. The Idealist Objection the same in Substance as the

Materialist . . . . .50

6. The Stand-point arrived at, Numbers . .52

7. Trinity in Unity, the first Manifold . . 54

8. Epistemology and Ontology inseparable . .61

Chapter III. — Realism, Idealism, Nominalism

1. Mr. Herbert Spencer's Realism . .64

2. Idealism Contradicted by the Laws of Language . 69

CONTENTS. XV

PAGE

3. Belief of the Real, Knowledge of the Ideal . 72

4. Mediaeval Realism, Modern Idealism . . 75

5. True Nominalism . . . .78

6. The Convention of Language . . .84

Chapter IV.— The Problem of Philosophy. — Words. 90 93 95 98 99 103 106

1. Recapitulation ....

2. Numbers are General Terms or Universals

3. Whewell and Mill on Language .

4. The Logical Result

5. All General "Words are Numbers

6. All General Terms are Products .

7. Denotatives and Connotatives, or Attributives Note. — Demonstration that Words are Products

or functions of Products . . .111

Chapter V. — Number, Time, and Space

1. The Foundations of Verbal Truth . .115

2. Scientific Truth Requires a New Convention in

Language . . . . .118

3. The Certainty of Numbers from the Senses . 124

4. Number, Space, and Time . . . 126

5. Time Deducible from our First Assumption . 127

6. Space Deducible from the First Assumption . 135

7. The Infinity of Number, Space, and Time •. 1 36

8. The Certainty of Deduction and Scepticism . 138

XVI CONTENTS.

PAGE

9. The Conclusion .... 140

10. Kant's Forms of Thought . . .143

11. The Trinity of the Human Mind . . 147

12. The Scientific Expressions Established . .149

Chapter VI. — Scientific Truth and Certainty

1. Scientific Certainty Numerical . . .155

2. Certainty by Space, Time, and Numbers. Newton 163

3. Gravity a Mere Word, not a Reality . . 170

4. All Scientific Ideas, Words not Realities . .178

Chapter VII. — Induction, Deduction, Truth

1 . Knowledge Begins with Sensations and Naming . 184

2. No Truth and Certainty from Induction . .187

3. The Ptolemaic System an Induction . .196

4. Utility and Truth . . . .199

5. Dalton's Law Deducible and Necessary. Why? A

Demonstration of it . . . . 206

Chapter VIII. — Life and Mind

1. An Example of the PRODUCT Hypothesis in

Verbal Discussion — the Factors of Life . 212

2. The Factors of the Human Mind— Power, Wisdom,

Goodness . . . . .225

CONTENTS, XVll

Chapter IX. — Law and Cause

page

1. Cause, Plurality of Causes, no Cause at all . 240

2. A Cause at Law and in Nature . . . 246

3. The Infra Dig. Argument . . . 255

4. Pantheistical Objections .... 258

5. Fundamental Differences and Mr. Mill . .260

6. "Words and Works ; Efficient and Formal Causes . 263

7. Sir J. Herschel on Law and Cause, and Induction

and Deduction .... 274

8. God in Everything but Evil Minds . . 279

Preface To Reissue.*

Before men can think or reason on any subject whatever, certain preliminary assumptions are necessary and unavoidable; and if men could agree upon what is to be taken for granted, no doubt a great number of disputes on philosophical subjects would disappear. In the first place, as we cannot reason or think about nothing, it is clear that the reasoner always assumes the Existence of the thing about which he proposes to reason. In the second place it is clear that he cannot propose any question concerning the thing to be discussed, without he first assumes the possibility of such question.

Thus certain Existences and Possibilities, or, to use the Logical names, Categories and Predicables, must always be assumed in every discussion before men can possibly think or reason together, in any w 7 ay whatever.

But it is also true that every absolute conclusion assumes and implies that there is nothing in the whole universe that can over-

* Consequent on the failure of the Publishers. In one notice of this work, the author has been accused of want of courtesy towards those "Deeper Thinkers" whose opinions he has attempted to refute. He takes this opportunity of expressing his hearty sorrow for any words which could possibly offend. But he finds that expressions which he looked on rather as an attempt to enliven a dull subject with possibly doubtful wit have been mistaken for " selfsufficiency and swagger," of which, however, he feels himself innocent.

XX PREFACE TO REISSUE.

turn it ; and therefore, in order to arrive at any absolute Truth by thinking and reasoning, it is also unavoidably necessary that our preliminary assumptions should in some way exhaust or embrace the whole Universe of Existence. Every one who asserts any thing as being absolutely True, has already in fact assumed some system of the Universe.

The common scoff that the Mediaeval schoolmen limited the Universe to the Categories and Predicables of Aristotle is in fact a scoff at the necessary and fundamental laws of all thinking and reasoning whatever.

If we are dissatisfied with Aristotle's fundamental assumptions then it becomes our duty to suggest better ; for thus only can any truth be established by thinking and reasoning. But we must always test the truth of our assumptions and conclusions as far as possible by observation and experiment.

In this Book I have assumed that there are three, and no more than three, distinct Existences in the Universe, viz., Mind, Matter, and Language ; the component factors of all human Knowledge. I also think that men can only discuss two possible kinds of questions concerning these three things, viz., their States and their Relations. I have also attempted to shew that Time, Space, and Number, the great measures by which we fix our conceptions of the External Universe of Matter are respectively particular relations

Preface To Reissue. XXI

of Mind, Matter, and Language. Facts may be either States or Relations. But Causes and Laws are all Relations.

But the main object of this Book is to shew that all abstract words or names whatever are scientifically - speaking products of certain Factors ; which factors are the abstract likenesses which the individuals of the class bear to each other. And thus I challenge all reasoners upon Abstract Subjects to define their words by setting down the list of factors which in their opinion go to compose the chief abstract terms which are in dispute. In short my chief object is to propose a new and more perfect method of defining abstract words. Of this method I give two short examples in Chapters VIII. and IX. But in truth until some better method of defining our abstract words is adopted the discussion of most abstract philosophical questions seems at present almost waste of time.

Thus, for example, when a learned author writes a Book * as he says " to explain Life, Mind, and Society ; in terms of Matter, motion and force ;" the question he proposes to discuss appears to my mind fundamentally absurd and impossible ! The reason is that I assume that Matter and Mind are two distinct and contradictory things, the Conscious thing and the ^conscious thing. He, on the other hand, must of necessity assume, as I conceive,

* Herbert Spencer's " First Principles."

XX11 PREFACE TO REISSUE.

that Mind may be evolved from or is a state of Matter ; or, in other terms, that motions and emotions or the conscious and its contradictory the unconscious may be one and the same thing ! To my mind such reasoning appears utterly absurd or impossible. He might as well propose to prove that a steam engine thinks and reasons when it uses its governor; or that a waterfall feels pain and grieves whilst pursuing its headlong course !

Since the overthrow of the authority of the Aristotelian philosophy therefore, it is more than ever necessary that each writer should state his fundamental assumptions ; what are the existences which he assumes to exist, the questions which he assumes to be possible. The author trusts that the simplicity of the method which he has proposed for defining abstract Terms by their Component Factors will commend itself to the intelligent reader.

The metaphysical arguments contained in this Book may also be expressed in a very few words. If we assume Mind and Matter to be distinct and different, then Physiology teaches us that the impressions of external things on our Bodies pass along the microscopic nerves of our nervous system into the grey cellular matter of the Brain. But we are there as far as ever from knowing the great step which converts the minute physical vibrations, or somethings in our brain, into thoughts or emotions or mental principles, into somethings

PREFACE TO REISSUE. XXlll

in our minds. We do and can trace the roads pursued by external impressions into minute infinitesimal somethings which pass along our nerves and exist in our brains. There we individually know that they are converted into thoughts, into mental Emotions or Judgments ; and to these thoughts we give names and manufacture words for that purpose, and send them forth along our outcarrying nerves to our fellow-men ; which words we call the names of the things which we assume to exist and which have produced the original impressions on our bodies. But as the nervous vibrations as well as the mental thoughts or emotions of each man can be known only to himself, the only things which men have in common in this whole process which can be compared together are the ultimate Human * Words which they make or adopt, and these words are therefore the only component materials of all Human reasoning and knowledge. Men cannot even speak of or discuss other men's thoughts or any external things in nature ; but they can discuss only their own or their neighbour's words for their private unknown thoughts of things. Thoughts arid Things themselves are by man's nature effectually and altogether removed from all human discussion. We can reason, but only with words and about words. But our words, if truly framed, may teach other men to think rightly about the thoughts and things which

XXIV PREFACE TO REISSUE.

we assume to exist. If the words for our fundamental assumptions are consistent with Truth, and if our conclusions are strictly deduced by accurate reasoning from those fundamental assumptions then our deductions are Truths. Induction may often assist us in guessing at new truths, but never can give us any absolute truth whatever. We make by induction only probable guesses from which we may sometimes frame new fundamental assumptions, just, for example, as Dalton's observation of definite proportions in chemistry has led to the atomic theory of matter, and Dalton's Law has become a necessary and absolute Truth, founded on the word Atom or ultimate particle (p. 206).

In every human conception whatever there are three Factors acting in unison together. The Thing or object producing nervous action or emotion in the Body. The Mind or subject passively recipient of the action of the object and actively emitting the Word expressing the conception — and the word itself which embodies the Mental Conception of the Thing and which Word is actively capable of transmitting that Conception to other minds.

These three form a tri-Unity, a Unity in Trinity, each actively engaged in creating each and every Human Conception. If this be true of every conception, it is of course true of all Human knowledge Therefore it is true of self-knowledge and of the Concep-

Preface To Reissue. XXV

tion of Spiritual Existence ; it is true of the Highest Conception man can form, i.e., of the Conception of the Deity as a purified Conception of the Highest Human self-consciousness, the dimmed Image of its Maker. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity, as revealed in Christianity, is shewn to be a necessary Truth deduced from the simple assumption that man is a Spirit enclosed in a Body and capable of communication with other minds by means of Words, symbols, or Language. In fact, the assumption which all men must make that the Universe consists of Mind, Matter, and Language, or of Spirits, Bodies, and Words, involves this deep and mysterious doctrinal Truth — the Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity of man's Conception of the supreme Godhead ! Thus our knowledge of the states and relations of things and persons may be continually increasing, but yet we have no absolute truths except verbal truths. Human Words are the only result of all our reasoning, Words, perhaps, expressing deeper views of the nature and constitution of the Universe ! These Words which thus pass and repass along men's nervous systems and are elaborated in men's Brains are as it were the material bridges between mind and mind and rule all mankind by their influence. Their importance can hardly be over-estimated, but metaphysical discussion is not and cannot be a discussion about the minds and mental

XXVI

Preface To Reissue

things of different men which we cannot in any wise compare, but only about men's words which we can and do compare. Thus we are brought again to view the importance of adopting some new and better method of defining our Words than has hitherto existed, and more especially in all Metaphysical and Philosophical discussion.

Knowledge is

The Human Mind is

Matter is

Man is

Infinite Number is

Infinite Time is

Infinite Space is

Definitions of Words used in this Work.

All Things or the Universe The product of Mind,

of Existence is Matter, and Language.

Things are of three kinds, Mental, Physical, and Verbal. Questions are of two kinds only, viz., States and Relations.

Mind, Things, and Words.

Emotion, Intellect, & Will, each of which is a Mind.

Force, Mass, and Form.

Body, Soul, and Spirit.

Unity and Infinity.

Number and Mind.

Number, Negative Matter, and Time.

Life is Matter, Organisation, Ab-

sorption, Assimilation, Secretion, Reproduction for Vegetable Life, Add Sensation for a Zoo*

phyte, Add Nervous Action or Intelligence for Animal Life, Add Mind or Spirit for Human Life.

Law is Words and Order.

Cause is Things, Action, and Mind.

Effect is Things and Passion.

THE SCIENCE OF TRUTH.

INTRODUCTION.

(1.) The Confusion of the "Fundamental Antithesis" Philosophy. — " The labours of philosophers up to the present time," wrote Kant, eighty years ago, " have aimed at erecting an edifice of philosophy, but to my eye this edifice appears in a very ruinous condition." If he could now look down upon what has followed his own able attempt to show that the highest philosophical wisdom must end in the deepest humility, or, as he expresses it, " That in respect to the essential ends of human nature we cannot advance

B further, with the help of the highest philosophy, than under the guidance which nature has vouchsafed to the meanest understanding," what would he have now said to the confusion, worse confounded, which later philosophers have built on those Kantian words and doctrines that, as he thought and wrote, were sufficient " to settle and conclude all possible questions of philosophy " ?

Who can describe the wordy conflicts that have been carried on since Kant's day about " the one and the manifold," " the subjective and objective, 5 ' " the pure reason and empirical reason," " intuitions and representations," " ideas, conceptions, perceptions, and intuitions," the "ego and non ego," "thoughts and things," "facts and theories," "necessary and experiential truths," " the possibility of purely thinking the unconditioned," " the two unities that are one unity," or, in short, " the fundamental antithesis of all Philosophy " ? Has Kant's most able and well meant attempt really settled anything that he thought he had settled ? or has his Philosophy, and its natural or unnatural developments, tended to

Int., § 1.] THE SCIENCE OF TRUTH. 3

satisfactorily answer any of those questions which he fondly hoped he had found the means to set at rest for ever ?

The simple fact remains, that Kant flung into the seething caldron of European Philosophy a number of new woi'ds, about which has been carried on ever since an unceasing warfare. The work that Kant proposed to do still remains to be done. Faith and Reason have neither gained much nor lost much by all the weapons that have been thrown, and " the edifice of Philosophy " is still as ruinous as ever.

In such an embroiled arena, what is wanted is not a glove of defiance, but a dove of peace. If, therefore, we seem to plunge into the middle of the philosophical field, it is not to handle the verbal weapons which have been hitherto used, but rather to show that those weapons, their words, have not hitherto been in any way prepared for the contest. In truth, most ordinary mortals rather approve of the Scotchman's definition of metaphysics, " Just twa men havering ; the ane does na ken what the ither says ; and the ither does

B 2 na ken what he says himseP ! " Most of those who look on, feel almost like that Turkish cadi who determined the cause by ordering both parties to be beaten, and confiscating the subject matter in dispute,

In fact, hopeless as the attempt may seem, and powerless as we may be to enforce the judgment, the Turk's decision is something like what we propose to do in the following pages. We desire, if possible, to silence all parties amongst modern antithetical philosophers, and to confiscate, by suppressing, the antithesis about which they have carried on the warfare. We affirm that there is no fundamental antithesis in the human mind or in human knowledge. We assert that the doctrine of a couple can give as little certainty or equilibrium in mental, as in mechanical philosophy, and that it can only continue, as it has hitherto proceeded, in never ending and inconclusive reasoning in a circle.

(2.) Mr. Herbert Spencer and the Universal Postulate. w Any witness almost is competent and sufficient to testify to a state of confusion in which he has taken an active

Int., § 2.] THE SCIENCE OF TRUTH- 5

part, however unfit or unable the witness may be either to state the cause or to suggest the true remedy. Let us summon first " an advanced thinker," 1 the latest self-styled realist in England. This philosopher demands a datum, a " universal postulate;" and thinks that its absolute necessity is proved by " the utter confusion of current opinion on all fundamental questions." He says that " this universal postulate must be found before the endless disputes can be brought to an end ;" and insists that the possibility of defending theories so utterly at variance with univeral belief as idealism and scepticism, and the doctrines of Fichte and Hegel, implies one of two things— " some fundamental flaw in the modes of argument," or, " that all thinking is fallacious*"

This witness, who is himself a philosophical

1 "Principles of Psychology," p. 5, et seq. The last "Westminster," July, 1860, p. 172, calls Mr. Spencer "a severe and stoical thinker." These advanced thinkers pro* voke and encourage one another like schoolboys taking a cold plunge, a Now, brave lads, who'll be overhead first ?" It would be amusing, if it were not painful, when one remembers that the subject involves, in substance, Eternity and Salvation, the immortality of the human mind, -the resurrection from the dead !

doctor to the extent of an octavo volume of 620 pages, proposes a cure for the prevailing disease in the body politic of philosophy, which is the most ludicrous possible. This cure is a panacea of his own composing, a dose to be henceforth swallowed by all philosophers, in the shape of "Mr. Spencer's universal postulate." This postulate complicates and involves nothing less than the seven following dubious words, ideas, notions, intuitions, or, as Mr. Mill might say, " names of tilings themselves" that have, " strictly speaking, no signification," viz.: 1st. Belief, in two meanings, not saying which ! 2nd, Proof ! 3rd, Inconceivability ! 4th, Negation ! 5th, Invariability ! 6th, Existence! 7th and last, a word which, he says, if all the other six are granted, may mean what we like, i. e., " anything it may," viz., Truth ! There is a collection of dubious words, or ideas, or things, for a rational and deliberative being to bolt affirmatively in one sentence as a Postulate ! But listen only to the consequences threatened by the doctor in case our philosophical stomach should refuse to submit to such an awful

Int., § 2.] THE SCIENCE OF TRUTH. 7

administration by this " advanced thinker." He tells us that we are all under " the inexorable necessity" of granting this universal postulate (i. e., of swallowing a grammatical hash involving all those seven dubious words or things, almost any one of which might well employ any man for half his philosophical life before he could be certain of its true and exact meaning) as " our only guarantee" for " the reality of our consciousness, of our sensations, and of our personal existence !" nay, more, if possible, " our only guarantee" for the truth and certainty " of any axiom," or " of any step in any demonstration !" To do this realist philosopher real and substantial justice, notwithstanding that my personal existence has been thus put in jeopardy, and that my consciousness has been left without any guarantee, according to the philosophy of this " advanced thinker," I subjoin in a note his own actual words, so that all my readers may realize their own consciousness and personal existence, by taking and adopting, if they can, i.e., swallowing, this universal postulate in any intelligible sense whatever.

I would merely observe with all humility, that in Euclid's school, a postulate always ranked with axioms, or supposed self-evident truths ; and in those early days, before advanced thinking had gone ahead so far backwards, it meant what no reasonable person could deny d priori. It is absurd to demand, at the point of your logical or philosophical spear, assent to a proposition involving six or seven doubtful words, which any man with half a grain of logic can pull to tatters. But the absurdity is infinitely greater when the philosopher, the advanced thinker, avowedly has two senses for one word, and either cannot, or does not, tell his patient or his disciple in which sense or in what meaning the word is to be taken. This indeed is " severe and stoical" logic; this is the climax of advanced thinking. 1 The wisest of men are liable to be

1 Mr. Spencer says, note, p. 30, in reference to a passage in the text, " I have given the word Belief two parallel meanings ; using it in the one case to describe the persistence of a state of consciousness, and in the other a persistent state of consciousness. The context [always a refuge when a man cannot explain himself] will in each case show in which sense it is to be understood." Again he says, at p. 31 : " Mean what we may by the word Truth, we have no choice but to hold that a Belief which is proved by the inconceivableness

Int., § 2.] THE SCIENCE OP TttUtH. 9

misled by a word, and unwittingly to find themselves defending what is indefensible. The proper course is then to correct the words and the thoughts they represent. But when an author avowedly uses one word in two senses in the same passage of his work, he thereby confesses himself in such a state oi dubiety and uncertainty on the subject of that

of its negation to invariably exist, is true. We have seen that this is the assumption on which every conclusion whatever ultimately rests. We have no other guarantee for the reality of consciousness, of sensations, of personal existence ; we have no other guarantee for any axiom j we have no other guarantee for any step in a demonstration. Hence, as being taken for granted in every act of the understanding, it must be regarded as the Universal Postulate" Here we are not told in which of Mr. Spencer's two meanings the word Belief is to be taken in the postulate itself. Many or most rational Englishmen would deny that Belief properly means either a persistent state, or persistence in any state of consciousness. The doctrine of realism is the existence of things independent of consciousness, and according to this doctrine, the Belief [the thing believed] should therefore exist whether the believer is conscious or unconscious. Thus this realist contradicts his own doctrine in the very meaning of the word Belief, and sets out on his philosophical career on behalf of realism, not only with an unmeaning postulate, but with a clear self-contradiction. In fact, it is impossible to tell from Mr. Spencer's words, whether this "realist" does or does not believe that the sun exists at noonday, when he, Mr. Spencer, goes down to the cellar, or shuts his eyes, and does not feel the sun's rays. See the whole passage about " the Sun," p. 29.

B 5 word, that he becomes entitled not to refutation, but to condemnation. However deficient a man may be in his powers of invention to make a new word, yet he can always put a blot or a blur, some mark or other, over the word in its second meaning. Now, an Englishman who cannot use the word belief without getting confused and involved with the two meanings to the word — the act of believing, and the thing believed — evidently must have a belief with a blur or a blot ; and he is not entitled to refutation, for his belief refutes itself by its incoherency. Mr. Herbert Spencer's belief is, on his own showing, of this kind. It has a blur in one or both senses.

Indeed, it generally happens that men who are in a state of doubt about a word, have no clear meaning to it at all, or not such a meaning as their fellow men can at all accept. So it is with Mr. Spencer's belief. His belief is such as ceases with consciousness, whereas Englishmen in general mean by belief something that would remain the same even if they became unconscious. They mean a thing

Int., § 3.] THE SCIENCE OF TRUTH. 1 1

believed, as well as the mere act of believing. They mean a true thought, as well as the mere trowing of it* They mean a selfexistent, self-coherent truth. They mean something more than the confused and shallow drivel of advanced thinkers on the subject of belief.

(3.) Some Knowledge exists. The Postulate. — The confusion and mutual polemic of the warring systems of philosophy is, however, if possible, greater than when Kant described it as the warfare of shadows, like that of the Heroes of the Valhalla. Those who have succeeded as well as those who preceded Kant, hew each other in pieces only to be in a twinkling reunited, again to amuse themselves and the world which lauohs at them in other equally fatal, but bloodless and indecisive contests. Nor is the absurdity lessened when a philosopher like Sir William Hamilton arises, full of learning and out-ofthe-way reading, who undertakes to raise or ruin philosophical reputations by distributing the palms for originality in nonsense; or awarding the penalties due for the literary

" theft " of the like valuable philosophical commodity. He has resuscitated Reid and overwhelmed Professors Brown and Young by delivering them to the avengers of Philosophical " theft." He himself, along with his distinguished disciple Mansel, now awaits the hero, qualified by sufficient knowledge of mathematics, to enter the groves of Academus, and to enforce the rule of Plato, and condemn them to retire, and carry their philosophy of " the unconditioned " to those who are wholly ignorant of the mathematics of the infinite. 1 Originality is great, but Truth

1 Vide Hamilton's Led. by Mansel and Veitch f vol. ii , Appendix, p. 527, for " list of contradictions proving the psychological theory of the conditioned," which betrays complete ignorance of the mathematics of infinites. It is there assumed as self-evident what every mathematician knows to be false, viz., that " nothing can be greater than infinite :" that " one infinity cannot be larger than another;" that " an infinite number of quantities cannot make a finite quantity ;" that " an infinite series of successive protensions can never be ended;" and so on : in short, it is clear, according to such reasoning, that Zeno, the ancient philosopher or sophist, was right, and that the greyhound can never overtake the hare, and Achilles could never overtake the tortoise ! Plato, informed of modern mathematics, would certainly have rusticated for a term Sir William and his disciple till they had studied mathematics more deeply. Mr. Mansel adopts his master's ignorance of mathematics, and speaks of u ihe absurdity of a greater than an infinite." — Bampton

Int., § 3.] THE SCIENCE OP TRUTH. 13

is greater. We do not much want originality on subjects on which we can learn probably as much, or even more, from Plato and Aristotle, than we can from most of their successors. We want a Postulate indeed, and accurate reasoning thereon, for we want Truth. We want a point from which we may move the world of ignorance and folly. But our demand, our Postulate, must be something which everybody believes, and which nobody can deny who takes the trouble to reason at all. It must be self-evident to every one, or it cannot be a universal postulate.