perhaps, hereafter.[1] But even if you dispute his assertions about the reality of his "ideas," you cannot, I am sure, deny the immense practical importance, as well as the universal acceptance, of his conclusions and discoveries; and you will do well to remember that this immensely important, this undisputed and indisputable knowledge, could never have been attained if we had not called in the Imagination to create for us ideas that never will be, and never can be, realised in this present material world.
Let us pass now from knowledge about things to knowledge about persons, i.e. about actions and motives.
Our knowledge about actions depends on (1) personal observation; (2) testimony; (3) circumstantial evidence or any combination of these three.
The knowledge that we derive of actions from our own observation is of course independent of Faith, so far as concerns the past; but it is very limited, and entirely useless and unpractical, except as a basis for knowledge about the present and future; for which knowledge (as we have seen) Faith in the permanence of Nature is absolutely necessary.
The knowledge of actions that comes to us from evidence, direct and circumstantial, is largely dependent on Faith. "Julius Cæsar invaded Britain"—how certain we all feel of that! Yet how slight the testimony! Simply a few pages of narrative, written by the supposed invader himself, and some casual remarks by one or two contemporary letter-writers about Cæsar's doings in Britain and the Senate's reception of the news. Why should we believe on so apparently flimsy a basis? Why should not Cæsar have sent one of his lieutenants to invade the island, and afterwards have taken the credit of it himself? Or there might have been no invasion at all, nothing but a reconnaissance grossly exaggerated and
- ↑ See the Definitions at the end of the book.
