The other point of interest in this chapter is the author’s refutation of Mr. Lewes’ conception of reasoning. In his _Problems of Life and Mind_ Mr. Lewes reduces the process of reasoning to mere sensible associations, and entirely overlooks the force and significance of the _ergo_. He says: “Could we realize all the links in the chain” (of reasoning) “by reducing conceptions to perceptions, and perceptions to sensibles, our most abstract reasonings would be a series of sensations.” This certainly is strange language for a psychologist, and forcibly demonstrates the hold Locke’s sensism still holds over the English mind. If we can conceive of a series of sensations in which the form of a syllogism does not enter――and we experience such many times daily――then surely there is something more in a train of reasoning than a mere series of sensations, and that is the intellectual act of illation denoted by _ergo_. Throughout this strange philosophism there runs an endeavor to debase man’s intellect and reduce it to the level of mere brutish faculties. The dignity of our common manhood is made the target of Spencer’s speculation and Mill’s subtle reveries, while the grand work of the church which lifted us out from the slough of barbarism is being gradually undone. We must indeed congratulate Dr. Mivart upon having led the way in grappling with the difficulties with which scientific transcendentalism bristles, and on having rent the net in which error strives to hold truth in silken dalliance. We come now to the most difficult and important chapter in the book――viz., that pertaining to the existence of the external world. We would premise, before entering upon an analysis of this chapter, that nothing short of a slow and careful perusal of it in the author’s language can convey to the reader a full impression of the difficulty and subtlety which attend the terms of the controversy as waged tripartitely between Herbert Spencer, Mr. Sidgwick, and the author. The statement of the proposition is simple enough, viz.: “The real existence of an external world made up of objects possessing qualities such as our faculties declare they possess, cannot be logically denied, and may be rationally affirmed.”