thus it is often that from the general of human faculties we ought not a j to require or expect human knowledge to to any thing more than probability to demand for science absolute and necessary truth seems to many persons a kind of � at least the extreme of presumption for if we regard truth as an the largest conceivable will still be a quantity distinct from the infinite not in degree but in kind but in the first place it ought to be distinctly understood and confessed that probability of itself can have no scientific we do it is true often attribute high scientific importance to what are only but this is on the supposition that they are not to remain but to become truths their importance c � in the prospect of knowledge and if this be absolutely cut off as in the theory their value is at an end in the second place we that this whole theory of probability is founded on an namely that is nothing higher than sensation i � that there is nothing in knowledge which our senses could not perceive provided they were perfect of their i and thus nothing but a mechanical of particulars that the material world is such an of particulars we admit but at the same time it is allowed that we have no with objects except through the senses and that sensations are states of the � tiu not states of the body therefore is based at all events not on any thing material but on something mental as appeared at the be of our examination we have no direct of objects but all our knowledge a mental process namely however is to is to attach to the particular an attribute that is a general character a particular attribute an attribute which does not attach the particular to a class is a contradiction m terms mr mill himself says in every act of what is called observation there is at least one � from the sensations to the presence of the object from the marks or to the entire phenomenon that is we infer the general character by the particular sensations and again we cannot describe a fact without more than the fact the m is only of one individual thing but to describe it is the system march to a between it and every other thing which is either or by any of the terms used or rather we should say what we perceive is an thing bnt the thing as an object or phenomenon is this is what is meant by the distinction between phenomena and in themselves there is not the rear son says mr mill i for believing that what we call the sensible qualities of the object are a type of any thing inherent in itself or bear any to its own nature a cause does not as such resemble its effects an east wind is not like the steam of boiling water why then should matter resemble our sensations why should the inmost nature of fire or water resemble the impressions made by these objects upon our senses and if not on the principle of resemblance on what other principle can the manner m which objects affect us through our senses afford us any insight into the inherent nature of those objects it may therefore safely be laid down as a truth obvious in itself and admitted by all whom it is at present necessary to take into consideration that of the world we know and can know absolutely nothing except the sensations which we experience from it that is to say our thoughts and even the representations we make to ourselves of outward things are not material things but of a nature altogether distinct from matter and sensation considered as mere to outward impulses is an abstraction and not a fact of experience in this statement of mr mill s however as in s distinction between phenomena and the notion seems to remain that the reason we perceive only phenomena lies in a of our powers that phenomena are still things but as it were the shadows or ghosts of the things and that if our faculties were more perfect we should perceive the things themselves lying behind of the same sort is the notion alluded to that are copies of the things or from without i ii these and the like views all flow out from the assumption that reality is equivalent to matter now that matter is the test of all things under tiie sun we are ready to allow whatever does not manifest itself we are at liberty to conclude does not exist de et de non est but that material existence is not reality we think sufficiently appears from the principles of the hy according to it the only character common the � to the material world its essence � is every natural event to destroy itself and bring something else in its place the bud makes way for the flower and the flower for the fruit the growth of the tree is a hastening to decay every and every mechanical force aims at being or spent the spring to the seeks the there is throughout nature a perpetual reference of each thing to something else each by itself is and partly in another a existence is thus an insufficient existence the idea of the thing is not realized in the thing itself but partly in another thing and this again in another and so on to reality therefore or the existence of the idea itself in the phenomenon but as namely a of the form of existence and of the form is of the reality manifested in it this is shown for instance in the of on animal organization alluded to by mr mill i their effect he says is the of the animal substance by combination with the poison into a compound held 