not give us rain, for how could they do it? and why do I not see them with mine eyes, when they go up to heaven to fetch it? I can not see the wind; but what is it? Who brings it, makes it blow, and roar, and terrify us? Do I know how the corn sprouts? Yesterday there was not a blade in my field; today I returned to the field and found some. Who can have given to the earth the wisdom and the power to produce it?' Then I buried my face in both my hands."

We must not overlook the unimpeachable character of fundamental intuitions. The chief effort of philosophers during the ages has been to reduce truth to the basis of primitive ideas; and beyond that foundation we can not pass, unless, indeed, we follow the example of Fitche and deny all possibility of obtaining any knowledge whatever and float out into an airy nothingness, a confused realm of fantastic images. But every sane thinker is conscious that there are reliable ideas of a fundamental nature which neither require nor are capable of proof, as they constitute the very foundation of all knowledge and truth. It is said of Archimedes, the Grecian mathematician, that he required only one fixed point, and he would be able to move the world. So, also, Descartes, the great French philosopher, desirous of finding one

unquestionable principle from which to start, discovered it in the fact of self-existence. That was a principle which to him neither required nor was capable of proof-for it was primitive-and still it could not be doubted. Whatever else might be surrounded with doubts, he could not doubt that he himself existed. That fundamental truth he must accept as a reality.1

In considering the subject of intuitions, however, we must be careful to determine which are really primitive. The usual rule to govern our decision is universality and necessity. If it can be shown that an idea is coextensive with the race or that it is absolutely necessary by all the known laws governing human thought, then we may accept it as an innate concept corresponding to a reality, and its validity can not rightly be questioned.

This argument from "common consent" is no new one. Alexander of Aphrodisias, we are told, "ascribed great authority to widely prevalent beliefs," "since," he asserts, "mankind generally do not greatly err from the truth." Cicero affirms that “in any matter whatever the consent of all nations is to be reckoned a law of nature.”1

This

1 Ueberweg's History of Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 41. 1 Tuscul, I 18.

idea is sustained by the ablest writers of all ages, among whom may be mentioned Socrates, Plato, Paul, Augustine, Descartes, Leibnitz, Barrow, Butler, Calderwood, and Spencer.

Now, in order that the reader may better understand the binding character of these primitive beliefs which bear the consent of all men without proof being required, we will refer to a few. In the case of Descartes, already referred to, the idea of the real existence of self was presented with all the force and convincing authority of a native belief. But while every individual is intuitively conscious of self, he is also conscious of something that is not self, something that is spontaneously conceived to be real substantial existence; and therefore the idea of externality, being a universal and necessary concept of the human mind, may be set down as a fundamental intuition whose authority can not be questioned. certain is every man of the existence of an external world that all his thoughts and actions are predicated upon its reality. Time and again his developing intellect may force him to acknowledge that he has been mistaken in regard to many things in the visible world; that the operations of nature are not just what he has supposed them to be. So he devises another explanation for the

So

turn

manifestation of material phenomena, which in at may require revision a later date. But amid all the changes one idea is unquestionable, is abiding, is fundamental-there is a real external world. Such axioms as the following are universal, primitive beliefs; hence they require no proof: "The whole must be equal to the sum of all its parts." "It is impossible for a thing to exist and yet not exist at the same time." Space and time are also primitive concepts. "The ground of a primary belief," says Alexander Winchell, "is neither testimony, nor authority, nor sensuous observation, nor inductive inference, nor deductive consequence. It is a ground more unassailable than any of these. It is a directness and a singleness of intuition of one transcendental and eternal truth."1

Cicero long ago declared that "there is no people so wild and savage as not to have believed in a God, even if they have been unacquainted with his nature." We have already shown the universality of religious practises founded upon that primitive belief arising spontaneously in the human soul-the belief in a higher power to which man is morally accountable.

Now, applying the well-established principle of 1 Reconciliation of Science and Religion, p. 307.

the authority of fundamental intuitions to this subject of religious phenomena, what results do we obtain? Does this native belief in a God answer to a living reality? And is this universal longing of humanity for association with the Most High a lie stamped on the nature of every rational soul? or does it possess its counterpart in a beneficent all-powerful Father who has thus constituted mankind with a religious nature in order that they might "seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him"? There is not in all nature one known correlate without the existence of its companion, for all the parts are nicely adjusted for the mutual benefit and harmony of the whole. The reflection of the man in the water is sufficient evidence of the existence of the man himself. The echo implies the real voice. The shadows seen in the subterranean cave by the captives described in "Plato's Republic" were cast by a real light behind them. If mankind has been groping for ages among the indistinct shadows of inferior religious faiths, those very shadows proclaim unmistakably the existence of a light somewhere, the "true light which"-in some degree at least-"lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

The innate character of the religious senti