Professor Huxley is the most conspicuous champion of this universal nescience, and Dr. Mivart devotes himself at greater length to a review of his principles. Huxley says: “Now, is our knowledge of anything we know or feel more or less than a knowledge of states of consciousness? And our whole life is made up of such states. Some of these states we refer to a cause we call ‘self,’ others to a cause or causes which may be comprehended under the title of ‘not-self.’ But neither of the existence of ‘self’ nor of that of ‘not-self’ have we, or can we by any possibility have, any such unquestionable and immediate certainty as we have of the states of consciousness which we consider to be their effects.” This utterance is remarkable for the inaccuracies with which it abounds and for the crudeness of its author’s philosophy. The fact that we immediately apprehend consciousness in the light of passing states is proof that, mediately or by reflection, we view it altogether differently, and this latter mode certainly affords a more certain and satisfactory knowledge. By reflection, then, or mediately, we regard those passing states as the product of something enduring and continuous of which we are in reality conscious, while experiencing those modifications described by Huxley as “passing states of consciousness.” When conscious of a state we are certainly conscious of that by which consciousness is had, or we would be forced to admit that nothing can be conscious, than which there could be no greater absurdity. The direct consciousness, therefore, which Huxley’s “passing states of consciousness” would describe, presupposes the consciousness of the organ of those “passing states”――a consciousness which stands in an _à priori_ relation to these latter. The chief flaw in Huxley’s reasoning is that, as he confines consciousness to a mere modification, and admits no modified substance as an abiding essence, he must regard mind, so far as he knows it, as a modification of nothing modified.