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nature and validity of its supposed revelations. Idealism does, however, set aside a most universal belief of mankind, and so far tends to scepticism. But this accusation does not hold against the view of perception now presented. The general belief of men in an external world is maintained, though a careful analysis shows the grounds of the conclusion to be somewhat different from those at first accepted. The accusation against idealism is not that it shows a general opinion to be groundless, but that it affirms simply and nakedly a general and necessary belief to be deceptive; that is, the reiterated and constant action of the mind to be delusive. We may, on like grounds, pronounce the axiomatic conclusions of the reason unreliable. These are nothing more than its inevitable convictions.

The affirmation in which the unaided powers of all men agree, which they spontaneously and inevitably make, is the existence of an external world, the opposition of matter to mind, a reference of a portion of our inner experience to outer sources or causes. Whether this conclusion is intuitive, or involves one or more of the simplest acts of judgment, most men have never so much as inquired, and have therefore no convictions concerning it. It is doubtless a matter of surprise to most persons to find, on inquiry, so many judgments mingled with the simplest act of sight. These had been overlooked, and the act of seeing regarded as more full, explicit and immediate than it is. Language favors this concealment of obscure, rapid judgments, and we are said to see the form of a sphere, when we merely infer it. Yet there is no ground for a distrust of man's faculties, because they are formed to act in ways and proportions not perfectly understood by those who accept results with no investigation of methods. To tell a man that the unlikeness of the images of the same object in each of his two eyes, is one of the grounds from