ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the position of foregoing General Analysis. It was shown at the outset that a datum was needed on which psychological science might rest: it was pointed out that this datum, underlying as it was required to do all our beliefs, must consist in some criterion of a true belief: and this criterion was found to be the invariable existence of the belief, as proved by the inconceivableness of its negation. It would seem to follow that the foregoing General Analysis forms a requisite preliminary, not only to any system of subjective knowledge, but to any system of objective knowledge; and in strictness this is true. Implicitly the Universal Postulate and its corollaries will be appealed to in every step of the following reasonings, as of all reasonings; but explicitly the reference to them will be but occasional.
