Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-10-07
The Testimony Of Intuition.


sence Of the intuition. Ii is loudly proclaimed
on all sides by the teachers Of positive science
that instinct IL dubious guide, liable TO the ac-
eidents of a chance OF Interpretation, variously
Understood by various minds; that in following
il We may be pursuing igais JGtas; that 1t Is at
pere on,,v valid for the Individual who may hap
pen to feel iis force; that IL Is not An uni
yersal endowment tas It should be If trust
Mat it can never yield Us Certainty, because its
root il a subjective feeling or copYietl6n. which
cannot be verified by external test These
charges cannot be ignored or lightly passed over.
and for the thest merely TO proclaim, as an ulti-
mate fact that the human soul has an intuition
Of God, that we are endowed with faculty OF
apprehension of which the correlatiye object is
sayine, viii carry no conviction to the atheist
valid evidence for you, but 1 have no such
irrepressible instinct; I see no evidence in
favor of innate ideas in the soul, or Of q sub
stance underneath the phenomena OF nature
of which We can have any adequate knowledge"
we may close the argument by simple reasser-
ton, and vindcste our procedure on the ground
no farther proof. We may also affirm that the
instinct being sacred endowment, and delicate
in proportion to the stupendOus nature of the
object it attests, it may. like every other func-
ton OF the human spirit, collapse from more
disuse. But if We are TO succeed in even
suggesting a doubt in the mind OF our OPP
ponent as TO the accuracy OF his analysis.
exhibit its credentials 50 far as that is possible
We must show why we cannot trace its gene
alogy further back, or resolve IL into simpler
element, and we must not keep its nature
be. This then is our task. The instinct TO which
We make ultimate appeal Is, in its first rise in
he soul, crude, dim, and inarticulate. Grad
Rally il shapes itself into greater clearness,
aided, in the case of most men, by the myriad
influences Of religious thought and Of historical
tradition frightening and refining IL when
edueed, but not creating it; separating the
AZ uOI1 frOr INV ma a. W haxy
contracted. Like all opr innate instincts this
one is at first infantile, and when il begins TO
assert itself il prsttles, rather than speaks CO.
berently. We do not here raise the general
question Of the existence of prIori principles.
We assume that the mind is not originally an
abrdSc tdbuIG, but the endOwments with which
IL starts are all gifts in embryo. They are not
Uniformed powers, so much as the capacities
and pOtentialities of mental life. Their
growth to maturity Is most gradual, and the
difference between their adult and their rudi-
mentary phases is as wide as is the interval be-
tween a mature organization and the egg from
which il springs. 1t is, therefore, no evidence
against the reality or the trustworthiness OF the
intuition 20 which we appeal that its manifesto
tons are not uniform, or that il sometimes seems
absent in the abnormal states of consciousness,
or, among the ruder civilizations of the world.
We admit that IL is difficult for the un-
Inflated to trace any affinity between its
normal and its abnormal manifestations, when
II is modified by circumstances TO any extent.
We farther admit that while never entirely alb
in stray individuals, but in a race or an era,
and be transmitted from generation TO genera
ton in a latent state IL may hibernate Q, and
then awake as from the sleep Of years, arising
against the Will OF its possessor and refusing 20
be silenced- Almost any phenomenon may call
il forth, and no single phenomenon can quench
it IL Is the spontaneous utterances of the soul
in presence Of the. object whose existence it
attests, and az such IL Is necessarily prior to
any act OF reflection upon its char acter, validity,
or significance. Reflex thought, which is the
product OF experience, cannot in any case origi-
nate an intuition, or account for those phenom-
ena which We may call by that name, supposing
them TO be delusive- Nothing in US, from the
simplest instinct 10 the lotest Intuition could in
any sense create the object il attests, or after
which il seeks and feels And all our ultimAts
principles, rreducible by analysis, simply attest
and assert-Brsfssh Quarterly Revtep.
sold only under a monopoly, AZ four times its
present price, IL might be advertised. recon-
mended, and kept before the people as the best
and cheapest preservative for timber that h ex-
posed to dampnes or the weather. As matters
stand, We either know nothing certain about
it, or forget In the press OF work TO use our
knowledge, or We avoid AL additional trouble,
thinking the bare wood svill last our time,