In contending, then, for the authority of certain _first principles_ of belief, such as that on which I conceive the conviction of our identity to be founded, I am sufficiently aware, in how many instances, reference to these has been rashly made by philosophers; when a deeper and more minute analysis would have shewn, that the supposed first principles were not elementary laws of thought, but were resolvable into others more simple. It is not to be inferred, however, from the rash attempts to establish principles of intuitive belief which do not exist, that there are no such principles in our mental constitution, any more than it is to be inferred, from the general prevalence of bad reasoning, that it is impossible for a human being to reason accurately. I trust, at any rate, that I have already sufficiently warned you, against the danger of acquiescing too soon in any proposition, as a law _of thought_, precluding all further inquiry, from its own primary and independent evidence; and that I have impressed you, not merely with the necessity of admitting some principles of this sort, as essential to every reasoning, but with the necessity also, of admitting them, only after the most cautious examination. The difficulty of ascertaining precisely, whether it be truth which we have attained, is, in many cases, much greater, than the difficulty of the actual attainment. Philosophy has in this respect been compared, by a very happy illustration,--which, therefore, homely and familiar as it is, I make no scruple to quote,--to “a game at which children play, in which one of them, with his eyes bandaged, runs after the others. If he catch any one, he is obliged to tell his name; and if he fail to name him, he is obliged to let him go, and to begin his running once more. It is the same,” says Fontenelle, the author from whom I borrow this image, “in our seeking after truth. Though we have our eyes bandaged, we do sometimes catch it.--But then we cannot maintain with certainty that it _is_ truth, which we have caught;--and in that moment it escapes from us.” If there be, as it has been already shewn that there must be, intuitive truths; and, if we are not to reject, but only to weigh cautiously, the belief which seems to us intuitive, it will be difficult to find any, which has a better claim to this distinction, than the faith which we have, in our identity, as one continued sentient and thinking being, or rather, to speak more accurately, as one permanent being capable of many varieties of sensation and thought.