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we should trust no one of our conclusions. "We believe what we believe, because the mind, on repeated inquiry, arrives again and again at the same convictions. Thus is it with memory. We are uncertain when we find inconsistent and changeable impressions; we are certain when the faculty restores the same image on each occasion. We start with no a priori theory as to what faculties the mind can have. We recognize as a fact that it does do what it seems to do, and take as a sufficient and ultimate proof of its power to impart and impart correctly any knowledge, the observed fact, that it does do this repeatedly and consistently. We cannot, therefore, accept the existence of the notion of causation, and recognize the constant use which the mind makes of it, and at the same time affirm it to be illusory. The admitted fact establishes a power of mind to discern and employ this notion, and is thus a sufficient proof of the correctness of such a notion. We should as soon say, the mind insists that it sees, but the vision is fanciful; as to say, the mind persists in assigning causes, but it has no ground for such assignment. The simple fact, that it does persistently assign them, is all the proof we are resting on in any department of knowledge.

We postulate, then, the assertions, that the mind does what it does by virtue of a power of doing it, and that the habitual conclusions of a power are sufficient evidence, and the only possible evidence of its existence and their own truth. If the mind supplies ideas, in a uniform way, ideas which the senses alone can not reach, then this fact is satisfactory proof, that these ideas rest back on a distinct faculty, and are sufficiently verified by that faculty. The philosophy here presented bridges the chasm between mind and matter, not by direct sensation, but indirectly, by intuitive ideas, whose presence gives occasion to the discussion, and makes it intelligible to us. In pronouncing so