of such Ideas, I have at least given a more systematic form to this doctrine. I have, moreover, traced it into many consequences to which it necessarily leads, but which do not appear to have been contemplated by the metaphysicians of the Scotch school. But I gladly acknowledge my obligations to the writers of that school; and I trust that in the near agreement of my views on such points with theirs, there is ground for believing the system of philosophy which I have presented, to be that to which the minds of thoughtful men, who have meditated on such subjects, are generally tending. 4. As a further instance that such a tendency is at work, I may make a quotation from an eminent English philosophical writer of another school. "If you will be at the pains," says Archbishop Whately[240], "carefully to analyze the simplest description you hear of any transaction or state of things, you will find that the process which almost invariably takes place is, in logical language, this: that each individual _has in his mind_ certain major premises or principles relative to the subject in question;--that observation of what actually presents itself to the senses, supplies minor premises; and that the statement given (and which is reported as a thing experienced) consists, in fact, of the _conclusions_ drawn from the combinations of these premises." The major premises here spoken of are the Fundamental Ideas, and the Axioms and Propositions to which they lead; and whatever is regarded as a fact of observation is necessarily a conclusion in which these propositions are assumed; for these contain, as we have said, the conditions of our experience. Our experience conforms to these axioms and their consequences, whether or not the connexion be stated in a logical manner, by means of premises and a conclusion.