278 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

human intelligence, is in no way affected by the nature of

the agency, or the modes of action, which have furnished

us with the certainty we possess. That is of the highest

possible kind, so that no one can even conceive of any mode

by which greater certainty could be given to us than is

given to us by self-evidence. It matters not to us what was

the intellectual condition of our immediate or our remote

ancestors, nor what was our state in infancy, nor how it

was we acquired the intellectual intuitions we have. Their

validity is not affected thereby, for their self-evidence to

us, hie et nunc, is clear and luminous. Of nothing else have

we, or can we have, such complete and absolute certainty.

So far, then, the suggestion of the development the

improving and perfecting of intellect through the action

of " Natural Selection " upon creatures already latently in-

telligent, and varying in their approximations towards its

incipient manifestation, is one which has no bearing upon

Epistemology, and may therefore be put aside by us, as

nothing but a waste of time could ensue from its further

study.

Very different, however, are the consequences which ensue

from that approximation between the highest psychical

powers of men and brutes, which we have spoken of* as

a "levelling down," and from the philosophical system

which underlies! the system put forth by Mr. Darwin, and

that which Mr. Herbert Spencer has recently brought to

its termination. The consequences which thence ensue do

indeed bear upon the science of Epistemology, and, indeed,

not only upon the groundwork of science, but upon every

separate science, and therefore, necessarily, on the basis of

them all. They are thus fatal because they spring from,

and can only exist with, a complete want of apprehension

of what the human intellect is and what are its powers.

* See ante, p. 276. t p. 273.

human intelligence, is in no way affected by the nature of

the agency, or the modes of action, which have furnished

us with the certainty we possess. That is of the highest

possible kind, so that no one can even conceive of any mode

by which greater certainty could be given to us than is

given to us by self-evidence. It matters not to us what was

the intellectual condition of our immediate or our remote

ancestors, nor what was our state in infancy, nor how it

was we acquired the intellectual intuitions we have. Their

validity is not affected thereby, for their self-evidence to

us, hie et nunc, is clear and luminous. Of nothing else have

we, or can we have, such complete and absolute certainty.

So far, then, the suggestion of the development the

improving and perfecting of intellect through the action

of " Natural Selection " upon creatures already latently in-

telligent, and varying in their approximations towards its

incipient manifestation, is one which has no bearing upon

Epistemology, and may therefore be put aside by us, as

nothing but a waste of time could ensue from its further

study.

Very different, however, are the consequences which ensue

from that approximation between the highest psychical

powers of men and brutes, which we have spoken of* as

a "levelling down," and from the philosophical system

which underlies! the system put forth by Mr. Darwin, and

that which Mr. Herbert Spencer has recently brought to

its termination. The consequences which thence ensue do

indeed bear upon the science of Epistemology, and, indeed,

not only upon the groundwork of science, but upon every

separate science, and therefore, necessarily, on the basis of

them all. They are thus fatal because they spring from,

and can only exist with, a complete want of apprehension

of what the human intellect is and what are its powers.

* See ante, p. 276. t p. 273.