Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/628

612 ground on which we can trust the reports of consciousness is that they assure us clare et distincte of the truth of things.… The evidence of Sense rests on Intuition.… We 'intuite' a thing, or see into it, by instinct or second sight.… The evidence it brings us may be implicit, as well as explicit.… An intuition may often slumber in an individual or in a race.… The more delicate the insight the rarer the endowment.… The evidence of no faculty is to be set aside, merely because it is possessed by few.… The intuition of the Infinite—which is the root of Theism—being necessarily rarer in common experience than the knowledge and recognition of the finite, is not therefore to be less esteemed or less deferred to as an attestation of reality.… It is the spontaneous utterance of human nature in presence of the Object whose existence it attests, and as such it is necessarily prior to any act of reflection upon its own character, validity or significance.… This, then, is the main characteristic of the theistic intuition. It announces the existence of a transcendent Being, whom it apprehends in the act of revealing itself.… The ontologist and the teleologist unconsciously show their own portrait, and, by an effort of thought, project it outward on the canvas of infinity. The intuitionalist, on the other hand, perceives that a revelation has been made to him, descending as through a break in the cloud, which closes again." We are told in the note on p. 122 that 'every intuition is ultimate, and carries its own evidence within it,' and yet, strange to say, on the very same page we are told that intuitive knowledge must be tested by reflection, so that no illusion be mistaken for reality. Four tests of an intuition are offered: its persistence and tenacity, historical prominence, interior harmony with other intuitions, influence in elevating character. This seems very much like the geometer's attempt to prove his axioms. We fear our intuitionist is falling back into rationalism, else why should 'ultimates' need 'tests'? Granting the full solidity of the intuition to him who has it, it is confessedly individual and transitory, and nothing is said to show how it can become evidence to others, who may doubt either the fact or the interpretation of the intuition.

The remaining chapters are devoted to corroborating from various points of view the central testimony of intuition. Agnosticism receives some trenchant criticisms, but none that strike one as at all new. The distinction which our author would make between the monistic theism which he advocates, and the pantheism which he condemns, is far from clear. To regard phenomena as "the garment we see Him by" seems to be good theism on page 11 and dangerous