self to our senses, we can not
avoid the conviction that it must have a cause. We can not even express
in language the relations of phenomena in time and space, without
speaking of causes. And there is not a rational being on the face of the
globe--a child, a savage, or a philosopher--who does not instinctively
and spontaneously affirm that every movement, every change, every new
existence, _must_ have a cause. Now what account can philosophy render
of this universal belief? One answer, and only one, is possible. The
_reason_ of man (that power of which Comte takes no account) is in fixed
and changeless relation to the principle of causation, just as _sense_
is in fixed and changeless relation to exterior phenomena, so that we
can not know the external world, can not think or speak of phenomenal
existence, except as _effects_. In the expressive and forcible language
of Jas. Martineau: "By an irresistible law of thought _all phenomena
present themselves to us as the expression of power_, and refer us to a
causal ground whence they issue. This dynamic source we neither see, nor
hear, nor feel; it is given in _thought_, supplied by the spontaneous
activity of mind as the correlative prefix to the phenomena
observed."[251] Unless, then, we are prepared to deny the validity of
all our rational intuitions, we can not avoid accepting "this subjective
postulate as a valid law for objective nature." If the intuitions of our
reason are pronounced deceptive and mendacious, so also must the
intuitions of the senses be pronounced illusory and false. Our whole
intellectual constitution is built up on false and erroneous principles,
and all knowledge of whatever kind must perish by "the contagion of
uncertainty."

[Footnote 251: "Essays," p. 47.]

Comte, however, is determined to treat the idea of causation as an
illusion, whether under its psychological form, as _will_, or under its
scientific form, as _force_. He feels that Theology is inevitable if we
permit the inquiry into causes;[252] and he is more anxious that
theology should perish than that truth should prevail. The human will
must, therefore, be robbed of all semblance of freedom, lest it should
suggest the idea of a Supreme Will governing nature; and human action,
like all other phenomena, must be reduced to uniform and necessary law.
All feelings, ideas, and principles guaranteed to us by consciousness
are to be cast out of the account. Psychology, resting on
self-obser