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These are not distinct tests, but different applications of the same test, that of a simple idea, disclosed as such in intellectual analysis. A simple idea must come, when it comes, abruptly, must carry with it absolute conviction, must be the only solvent of the facts it expounds, must ever be identical, and transcendental. The absolute identity of space, of time, of number in all their applications is noteworthy. Resemblance, though it may lie between different things, is yet ever one and the same relation; right marks the one fact of a rational law of action.

Lesson 57 - 15. Objective character - p.256

15. Another vital point in this discussion is whether these ideas are to be regarded as purely subjective, as mere mental forms brought to the object-matter of thought, or whether they pertain as external, necessary forms to that matter itself, thus possessing an independent being. The first belief, as advanced by Kant, that intuitive ideas are the mere moulds of thought, becomes the initiatory term of idealism. It is as contradictory to the universal opinions of men as any philosophy well can be. We do not say, that it is contradictory to consciousness, for it is not, but that it sets aside as wholly invalid and without foundation the universal convictions of men, thereby casting great improbability on its own conclusions.

Cause and effect constitute the notion by which we more especially establish the existence of the external world. Not to accept as just and safe the inference to which this idea of the mind lead us, is (1) to deny the integrity of our faculties, and to introduce a fatal scepticism to which no after limits can be set. It is a fundamental principle of sound philosophy, that the integrity of no faculty can be denied, nor its guarded, normal action be set aside. If, therefore, we recognize the universal presence of the notion of cause and effect, we have no more right to treat it as illusory, than we have thus to regard vision