accords with our literature in this view of the meaning of the word reason; whose efficiency, moreover, it endeavors to amplify, by surrounding it with satellites of adjectives formed from it, the principal of which are “reasonable” and “unreasonable.” Provided with this vocabulary, we pronounce it to be unreasonable to deny any truth whatever that can be well and clearly ascertained; and so far are we from reserving these adjectives for the occasion of demonstrative truth, and holding them inapplicable where self-evident or intuitive truth comes on the carpet, that we account it, if possible, still more unreasonable to deny the latter than the former.

But if the nomenclature adopted by Locke be the right one, there ought to be a change in these current modes of speaking and writing. One who should reject the proofs of Euclid, would be unreasonable; one who should maintain that Thurtel or Greenacre were innocent of murder, would be unreasonable; but, one who should deny the truth of any self-evident proposition, would not be unreasonable; for to say this, would be to say that reason has cognisance of such propositions, whereas, according to him, it is expressly not reason, but intuition that takes this office. The words “intuitional” and “unintuitional,” must be invented to supply the obvious need which the apparent gap discovers; there seems no other way of supplying it.

Lest I should be suspected of somewhat making up a case; of having, perhaps, represented not so much what Locke really means, as what he seems to mean, I will remind the reader that Locke is undertaking the formal definition of a word, and that on such a critical occasion, it is proper to give him credit for not meaning otherwise than he seems to mean.

The passage which is my text, will be found in the earlier part of the seventeenth chapter of the fourth book. Indeed, I could at once prove my indictment by citing a few words from it, accompanied by a comment of my own, had I any right to impose on the reader a belief in the discriminating fairness and matter-of-fact accuracy, both of my extracts and my comment.

I will, however, venture on such a step; I will suppose myself commenting on this passage, and proceed thus: Locke, it will be seen in this, his foremost and professed definition of the word reason, contrasts it with “sense and intuition.”

Whether he holds these to be identical with what he calls “the outward and the inward sense,” is not quite clear. That, however, is not the question.

He says, that these two faculties “reach but a very little way”; for that “the greatest part of our knowledge depends upon deductions and intermediate ideas.” Now, reason, he says, may be defined to be that faculty, whose specific office it is “to find out and apply” those intermediate ideas and deductions by which we obtain knowledge that consists of two kinds, one that which exalts us into “certainty,” the other that which, though less generous diet for the mind, we have constantly good ground for gladly acquiescing in, and which we call “probability.” So that, says Locke, if you ask, “What room is there for the exercise of any other faculty but outward sense and inward perception?” I can abundantly reply, “Very much.” I have shown you that without this “demonstrative” faculty, our knowledge would be but a skeleton; it would, indeed, not be properly speaking knowledge, but mere rudiments of knowledge.

Such is my interpretation of Locke’s definition of reason, in the proper and specific sense of this word. If it is strictly correct, as I believe the intelligent reader will find by reference, then it is Locke confounds reason with reasoning, mistakes a part for the whole, and the whole for a part, and acts similarly—to borrow his own way of illustration—to the representing a gallon to be a quart, or a half-sovereign to be a sovereign.

It is to be observed, too, that it is entirely in behalf of the more showy kind of knowledge, that the mistake is made. The respected name of reason is given exclusively to logic and demonstrating. Good sense, good feeling, just instinct, if they stand alone, have no claim to it; they are put on an inferior footing; true, they are intuition; but what then? they are not reason.

Now, the century introduced by Locke is accused by the present, and it is generally admitted, with some degree of justice, of having “materialistic” tendencies. We may see, then, how Locke’s doctrine, as just described, founded though it is only on nomenclature, hinging merely on definition, incurring whatever wrongness it implicates from no other lapse than that of confounding a word with its derivative, doing nothing, in short, but annul the difference of meaning between the two words, reason and reasoning; we may see how this apparently harmless experiment might tend to supplying these materialistic tendencies with a ground, a rationale, a principle, and thus to exalt their authority, and how, indeed! it just smacks of their spirit.

It may be seen, too, how, from a few slips, such as this on the part of the champion of the “new philosophy,” competing schools of the present age might be able to make up a case, specious enough to gain the acquiescence of a portion of the public against both—with how great futility, I believe, would appear, if the accusations were weighed by a competent tribunal.

And, finally, it might be expected, that the undue exaltation of the demonstrative department of reason, should issue in a reaction into a contrary extreme, and that some Mr. Carlyle might be found to inveigh against “logic,” to sneer at “analysis,” to denounce “cause and effect philosophy” and to praise “mysticism.”

I have already assumed that the third test that I promised, goes against Locke, and requires no examination, simply because he has not advanced it in his behalf. He has assigned no ground for changing the meaning of the word reason, and it is presumable that none is assignable.

The question, What is the Criterion of Truth?—that is, What are the proper means of distinguishing whether anything that is asserted to be true is so or not? claims immediate notice, because such a criterion exists, and the new philosophy necessarily appeals to it when it comes before the public, while it has shown with what effect it can do so, in the case of those of its branches—namely, the purely material and the mathematical, that flourish in society.

Premising that it is a way of certifying truth that has been immemorially used by mankind in their daily affairs, and which they have always, to some extent, instinctively transferred to their judgments in philosophy, and that it is the only possible general and summary criterion of truth, I may describe it as consisting in the unanimous assent to some idea or assertion of all who are thought competent to pronounce concerning it.

Viewed in connection with the thing it verifies, and the parties who use it, the criterion may be thus represented: Any idea, assertion, or opinion, must, by any inquirer, be found true, when he perceives it to be such as would be unanimously assented to by all presumably competent judges of the kind of truth to which it refers.

So that those who use this criterion, and are convinced of the truth of anything through its medium—a proceeding which I have represented as common and habitual to mankind—in thereby pronouncing certain supposed persons to be judges of truth in the said matter, claim themselves to be also judges of it in the matter of so pronouncing. The acts of judgment they thus tacitly challenge to themselves may be said to be to the following effect:—1. They assign the qualifications that constitute competency for a certain function. 2. They decide that there are persons in the community answering to this character. 3. They opine that the view such persons take or would take, imports an assertion of the truth of the idea in question. 4. They accredit that view with being strictly one, supposing that all qualified to arbitrate would acquiesce and agree in the same. 5. They attribute to themselves a similar unanimity. 6. They assume the sufficiency of their own judgment to make all the above conclusions.

These assumptions on their part, so complicated in description, are simple enough in performance. It is plain that mankind—more properly here to be called the public—simply attach themselves to some opinion which they find current in society; while, however, the assumptions I have just described are, in their full measure, but a necessary consequence of their so doing, doubtless their so doing must itself have been dictated by some kind of anticipation of them, but this may, to any degree, have been vague, undetermined, partial, and imperfect.

The rationale of this double bench of judges is thus explained. In reference to almost every kind of truth there is always a certain portion of the community better able to judge than the rest. Hence it becomes clearly the part of the latter, if they wish to be rightly informed, to defer to the opinion of those confessedly better judges—confessed to be such from the general opinion to that effect. Thus a second set of judges perforce, in addition to those that were originally conceived by choice, is implicated in this transaction.

For the primary sort I must seek a name from the French language, which calls them “experts,” the English supplying, I believe, none, except a very vernacular one, the “knowing ones”; the others have already got a well-known name—the public.

The public, in deciding on the occasions in question, what are the qualifications that constitute “experts” may be said to choose them, thereby, however, choosing persons in idea, and not bodily. The relation of the public to these conceptions of theirs is the same as that of the constituencies to the members of Parliament, in the point of one being the choosers and the others the chosen, with a common object in view.

I suppose, to stop the current of my discourse, and adjourn its topic, for the sake of at once bringing the general principle discussed to the test of exemplification, would have its want of logical harmony excused by its being desiderated by the reader.

I had undertaken to prove that this principle—which, for distinction’s sake, I will call the unanimity principle—is the proper and only criterion of scientific truth to the great non-scientific world, and consequently that modern philosophy necessarily appeals to it when it comes before the public. What I had thus taken upon myself to do, obviously was—first, to display and explicate the principle by definition, and this I had already done; and next—to describe it theoretically by showing its manner of existing, and this I was engaged in doing. Leaving this inquiry in the midst, I am now going to deviate into the practical phase of its description, by showing, not how it is, but how it acts. This seems necessary for the satisfaction of the reader, as being the only way of securing him from any, even were it but temporary, misapprehension as to the working value of the principle for which his attention is demanded. I therefore select the six following examples, the two first homely, and the four last philosophical, of its ordinary use by the public.

They will be at once seen to justify my assertion of its having for its main characteristics the two facts—first, that mankind habitually use it, and have always done so; and next, that propositions thus warranted are universally accepted as established truth, and that no one thinks of calling them in question.

1. Thus no one doubts, when coming to the intersection of two roads, he sees a sign-post, on one of whose pointers is written “To London,” and on the other “To Windsor,” no one hesitates to believe that the information thus conveyed to him is true; because he is aware that those who give it are competent to do so, and that none similarly competent will gainsay it.

2. Again, no one doubts that the sun rises and sets once in every twenty-four hours; no one doubts that he so rose and set yesterday. Every one is ready to affirm the certainty of these two facts, but very few can do so, in any great degree, from their own experience; but they help the lack of this by that of their neighbors. Neither is it necessary that they should have any near, nor even the most remote, idea of the personality of those on whose testimony they thus implicitly rely; it suffices they are sure, whoever they may be, they have the right qualifications for testifying in the way they do, and that no one so qualified can contradict their evidence, or dream of doing so.

The above are examples of the criterion of truth, applied to the ideas and proceedings of ordinary life. It will be seen therefrom, first that mankind have in all ages been educated in an acceptance of its principle, according to my definition of it, the principle, namely, of an indubitable certainty of truth, resulting from the unanimous assent to some idea of all who are thought by self and neighbors competent to pronounce thereon; possibly too they may be said to have been educated in some imperfect theoretical appreciation of this principle.

It will secondly be seen therefrom, that the two kinds of unanimity which I have predicated as essential to the proper use and results of this criterion, an unanimity, namely, on the part of the supposed good judges of certain descriptions of truth, who may be called the adepts or knowing ones imagined by the public; and again an unanimity on the part of the public itself in interpreting and adopting their opinion; it will be seen, I say, that this double unanimity is perfectly attainable, nay, perfectly attained, and that too so extensively, as to constitute a common and familiar occurrence on all manner of occasions of daily life.

I will now give instances of their similar use of it in directing their judgments on philosophical questions.

3. Very few of the public are able to examine the proof of any of the theorems of Euclid, yet there is none of them who would think of seriously doubting the truth of anything contained in that book, the ground of their confidence being solely their knowledge of the fact, that the learned in these matters have unanimously so decided.

Every one, again, believes in certain facts that are asserted by navigators, explorers, and geographers, respecting the existence, position, and products of various countries of the globe. Every one, further, believes in certain deductions derived from these facts by naturalists, geologists, astronomers, and so forth. The belief is owing to the unanimous testimony of all these confessedly competent authorities; but whenever they are seen to differ among themselves, the public withholds its entire belief, and either doubts or disbelieves the things asserted. Thus the public is at this day doubtful and divided whether there is such a creature as the sea-serpent. Similarly the public is dubious—for it must needs be so if any section of it is so—whether a certain explorer who was authoritatively sent out about a dozen years ago conjointly by the French Government and Institute, was, in any degree, justified in bringing home the account he did of there being a tribe of men in the interior of Africa having tails, whether this unexpected information is, in any important particular, true.

The two last examples have been furnished by material science. I will now draw one