PROP. I.————
while, considering the great weight which this proposition has to bear, we may be excused for bestowing a few more words on its enforcement.
It is not refuted but rather confirmed by experience.10. If this first proposition is not very clearly confirmed by experience, it is at any rate not refuted by that authority. No one, by any effort of the mind, can ever apprehend a thing to the entire exclusion of himself. A man cannot wittingly leave himself altogether out of his account, and proceed to the consideration of the objects by which he is surrounded. On the contrary, he will find that, nolens volens, he carries himself consciously along with him, faint though the consciousness may be, in all the scenes through which he passes, and in all the operations in which he is engaged. He will find that, when he is cognisant of perceptions, he is always cognisant of them as his. But this cognisance is equivalent to self-consciousness, and therefore it is reasonable to conclude that our proposition is not only not overthrown, but, moreover, that it is corroborated by experience.
Its best evidence is reason, which fixes it as a necessary truth or axiom.11. But it is Reason alone which can give to this proposition the certainty and extension which are required to render it a sure foundation for all that is to follow. Experience can only establish it as a limited matter of fact; and this is not sufficient for the purposes of our subsequent demonstrations. It