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1. What are here called assumptions are properly assertions, which man makes, and cannot help making, except he deny himself;--necessary convictions, first truths, first principles, _a priori_ ideas. They are organic, and so are the foundation of all knowledge. They are not results learned from lessons, but are _primary_, and conditional to an ability to learn. But supposing them to be assumptions, having, at most, no more groundwork than a vague guess, there devolves a labor which Mr. Spencer and his coadjutors have never attempted, and which, we are persuaded, they would find the most difficult of all, viz., to account for the fact of these assumptions. For the question is pertinent and urgent;