246. It is difficult to fight skepticism when it takes this ground: situated beyond the domains of reason, the decisions of reason cannot reach it. It will appeal from them all, for it begins by denying the competency of the judge. But as these skeptics admit consciousness, it is right that they should defend it against whoever attempts to deprive them of it. We believe that if the objectiveness of ideas be denied, not only all science, but also all consciousness is annihilated; and here skeptics are guilty of an inconsequence; for, while they deny the objectiveness of some ideas, they admit that of others. No consciousness, properly so called, can exist, if this objectiveness be absolutely destroyed. We beg the reader to follow us in a brief, but severe analysis of the facts of consciousness, in their relations with the objectiveness of ideas.[(24)]
[CHAPTER XXV.]
THE OBJECTIVE VALUE OF IDEAS.
247. The transition from subject to object, from subjective appearance to objective reality, is a problem which vexes fundamental philosophy. Consciousness will not permit us to doubt that certain things appear to us in such a manner; but are they in reality what they appear to us? How are we to know this? What shall assure us of this conformity of the idea with the object?
The question does not relate solely to sensations; it also extends to purely intellectual ideas, even to those inundated with that internal light which we call evidence. "What I evidently see in the idea of a thing, is as I see it," philosophers have said, and all mankind with them. No one doubts what is presented to him as evidently true. But how prove that evidence is a legitimate criterion of truth?
248. "God is truthful," says Descartes, "and could not have deceived us; He could not have taken pleasure in making us the victims of perpetual illusions." All this is true. But the skeptic will ask how we know that God is truthful, or even that he exists. If we found the veracity of God on the idea of an infinitely perfect being, as Descartes does, there is still the same difficulty with respect to the correspondence of the idea with the object. If we draw the demonstration of the veracity and existence of God from the ideas of necessary and contingent beings, of effect and cause, of order and intelligence, we again meet the same obstacle, and are still unable to pass from the idea to the object.
No matter how much we cavil, we shall never get out of this circle, we shall always return to the same point. The mind cannot think out of itself; what it knows, it knows by means of its ideas; if these deceive, it has nothing left to set it right. All rectification, all proof must employ these ideas, and these, in their turn, require new proof and rectification.
249. Many books of philosophy exaggerate the illusions of the senses, and the difficulty of assuring ourselves of the sensible reality, when they solve this question: "I perceive it to be so; but is it as I perceive?" These same books immediately afterwards speak of the order of ideas with security equal to their mistrust in the sensible order. This does not seem very logical, for phenomena relating to the senses, may be examined by the light of reason, and it may be seen how far they agree with it: but what touch-stone have we for the phenomena of reason itself? If there be difficulty in the sensible, there is likewise in the intellectual, and the more serious, since it affects the very basis of all cognitions, even those which relate to sensations.