224 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE
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which is a form of idiocy. What other or better criterion, or
ground of belief, could any ultimate truth possibly have?
Any criterion of an ultimate proposition must be either
contained in that proposition itself, and so make it luminously
self-evident, or else in something external to it. Now any
external criterion, however complete and perfect it may be,
could only be appreciated by us through our perception of
it and our judgment about it. If a proposition suddenly
appeared written upon a cloud or on the face of the full-
moon, we could not on that account accept it as certainly
true till we had examined the evidences which circumstances
could possibly afford us. Our first impression, of course,
\vould be that we were the victims of a hallucination, and
next the question of the possibility and probability of common
hallucinations would have to be taken into consideration.
But, finally and at last, if we did accept the proposition as
true, it would only be because we perceived that our ultimate
judgments about it were self-evidently so. If the proposition
so written were, " two added to two make five," we should
not believe it to be true any the more for its inexplicable
appearance. By no external criterion, then, neither by the
absurd one just imagined, nor by any other, could we be
furnished with better evidence than we already possess. We
could but have self-evidence, after all, as our ultimate
criterion. It will be clearly seen, on reflexion, that nothing
external no common consent of mankind, common sense,
or any amount of human testimony could ever take the
place of an ultimate criterion of knowledge, since some
judgment of our own mind must always decide for us with
respect to the existence and the value of such criteria. Self-
evidence, then, is the necessary and only criterion of truth.
The principle of evidence is one which is really ultimate, and
must be accepted under pain either of futile reasoning, or
complete intellectual paralysis. It is, of course, necessarily
which is a form of idiocy. What other or better criterion, or
ground of belief, could any ultimate truth possibly have?
Any criterion of an ultimate proposition must be either
contained in that proposition itself, and so make it luminously
self-evident, or else in something external to it. Now any
external criterion, however complete and perfect it may be,
could only be appreciated by us through our perception of
it and our judgment about it. If a proposition suddenly
appeared written upon a cloud or on the face of the full-
moon, we could not on that account accept it as certainly
true till we had examined the evidences which circumstances
could possibly afford us. Our first impression, of course,
\vould be that we were the victims of a hallucination, and
next the question of the possibility and probability of common
hallucinations would have to be taken into consideration.
But, finally and at last, if we did accept the proposition as
true, it would only be because we perceived that our ultimate
judgments about it were self-evidently so. If the proposition
so written were, " two added to two make five," we should
not believe it to be true any the more for its inexplicable
appearance. By no external criterion, then, neither by the
absurd one just imagined, nor by any other, could we be
furnished with better evidence than we already possess. We
could but have self-evidence, after all, as our ultimate
criterion. It will be clearly seen, on reflexion, that nothing
external no common consent of mankind, common sense,
or any amount of human testimony could ever take the
place of an ultimate criterion of knowledge, since some
judgment of our own mind must always decide for us with
respect to the existence and the value of such criteria. Self-
evidence, then, is the necessary and only criterion of truth.
The principle of evidence is one which is really ultimate, and
must be accepted under pain either of futile reasoning, or
complete intellectual paralysis. It is, of course, necessarily