it is argued that we can learn nothing, or else only what we know already. . . . . It is not inconceivable that we should learn what we already know in a different point of view; but it would be absurd that we should know and not know one and the same thing in one and the same point of view."*

Aristotle here manifests a true appreciation; and indeed throughout his writings, in spite of a too great reliance on Reasoning uncontrolled by Observation, which was inevitable in that stage of culture, he displays an abiding conviction of the importance of the direct interrogation of Nature, and of submission to what Fact discloses.

THE THREE METHODS.

76. The cardinal error of what is known as the Subjective or Speculative Method, contradistinguished from the Objective or Scientific Method, does not consist, as is sometimes said, in the interpretation of objective facts by subjective facts, phenomena by ideas, for that is equally the procedure of Science; but consists in the precipitation with which the ideas are generalized from particulars, and in the application of such symbols to other things than those really symbolized: in other words, it consists in Deduction without Verification. The metaphysical thinker is said to impose his conceptions on phenomena instead of observing them; and it is found that these conceptions are not only generalizations of partial aspects which are made the symbols of all the aspects, but they are also conceptions which are partly the products of emotion or fancy, assigning to casual analogies the value of causal connections. Instead of interpreting his symbols and testing his inferences, he applies his symbols deductively to things which were not originally gathered into those general expressions, and trusts the validity of inferences

* Οτι καθόλου ἐπίσταται, ἁπλῶς δὲ οὐκ ἐπίσταται.

he has not tested. The scientific thinker also applies his symbols deductively, but he is (or ought to be) on his guard against unverified Deduction, and treats it as a tentative process. His conceptions are trustworthy, so far as he has formed them out of verified perceptions, and applies them only to cases which have every appearance of being similar in kind to those already classed together in his inductions; but aware that this similarity is an unproved assumption, he awaits the result of investigation before finally concluding that the application of his symbols is here warranted. The purely Deductive Method would be as fatal in Science as it is seen to be in Metaphysics, were it not that the conceptions of Science are commonly more accurately representative of perceptions, and therefore more extensively applicable to reals. The errors of both are not errors of Reasoning, but errors of Application; and the exactness of any science, say of Mathematics, lies wholly in the limitation of its symbols to the significates they express.

77. The Inductive Method is frequently contrasted with the Deductive, and both of these with the Metaphysical Method, which is called in Germany the Speculative, and in one school is based on the power of Intellectual Intuition, in the other on the power of Dialectic. No one of these Methods is efficient unless it be completed by the method of Reduction, verifying step by step the terms employed; whereas each is efficient under this condition. Induction is good, Deduction is good, Speculation is good, but each and all are anticipations, not investigations (to use Bacon's antithesis); they are finger-posts, not pathways. When an induction is freed from all contingency, it is registered in an identical proposition; when it is more, it is a guess. So with Deduction.

78. There are indeed but two ways of supplementing

Experience so as to extend its range beyond what is or has been felt. These are 1o, Inference, which assumes that the unseen will be of the same nature as the seen ; and 2°, Naming, which condenses manifold experiences in symbols easily operated on. Both are generalizations of Experience, neither can have any validity not derived from Feeling. A generalization is a register or a fingerpost, according as it gathers into one expression all those observed particulars which are alike, letting drop those which are unlike and individual, or as it points out the probable existence of particulars not actually observed, by extending to the unobserved cases what is already known of cases resembling them, dropping any individual differences. Thus terrestial and celestial movements are generalized under Gravitation, in spite of their obvious accompanying differences; and from this generalization we infer its extension to double stars and throughout the universe. Sensibility, observed in ourselves and inferred in all the higher animals, is extended to all animals with a nervous system.

The manifest importance of such registers need not here be dwelt on. The knowledge, for example, of the law that water will find its level- a generalization of observed facts — enables the modern engineer to dispense with the costly aqueducts which brought the water only to one city, and to construct a network of pipes which distribute the water to various cities distant from the source and to every street in each city, every house in that street, and every floor of every house. But while recognizing the importance of generalizations, we must also recognize their limits. The lesson we most need in Philosophy is that which is written in centuries of failure,not to rely on Reasoning alone as a means of Discovery.*

* Sec Appendix B.

CHAPTER VII.

RETROSPECT.

79. HERE ends our survey of the nature of Knowledge, its limitations, its certitude, its methods. We have viewed the subject from many sides, always bearing in mind those cardinal facts of Experience on which the advocates of a possible Metempirical Science rely, and always at every turn finding those facts capable of a better explanation on the principle which excludes the Supra-sensible altogether from research, and admits into its calculations only the known functions of unknown quantities. What is given in sensibles and extra-sensibles furnishes the material of Knowledge; whatever transcends these is a Mythology of abstractions, the rise of which forms an important branch of psychological inquiry. The belief that these abstractions are more than symbols, and are representatives of a deeper reality than can be found in phenomena, is the illusion of Metempirics.

In the course of the discussion we have reiterated certain statements so many times, that many a reader may have been made impatient. If his impatience is excusable, my procedure has the excuse of a deliberate purpose. Daily seeing how the clearest thinkers are misunderstood and misrepresented, less from the critic's want of penetration than from his want of remembering the principles. on which the conclusions rest, and admitting that no reader who has not thoroughly assimilated a writer's

VOL. II.

9

M

principles can be expected to remember in the middle of a treatise what was laid down in its early pages, I preferred sinning against the laws of good writing by frequent repetition, to frustrating the very object of my writing.

80. Knowledge we have seen to be virtual Feeling. Its origin, its material, its aim, is always Feeling. What is called Thought is Feeling under symbolical forms; and its symbols have to be interpreted in terms of Sense before they can be accepted as the rational equivalents of Things; sensations being the sensitive equivalents of qualities. All cognitions- even the most abstract are pri

marily feelings.

81. The Known is that which has been felt and distinguished. The Unknown is that which has not been felt, or not been distinguished. The Unknowable is that which cannot be felt or distinguished. The limits of the Unknown are fluctuating, those of the Unknowable are fixed and absolute, so long, at least, as the present constitution of man and the Cosmos remains. A simple change of position would bring what is now unknown within the circle of knowledge, as the guano now lying on the coasts of Peru may be brought within the assimilative range of the cereals of Surrey. But to bring what is unknowable within our circle would require a change in its nature, or in ours.

82. Things and relations not directly accessible to Sense are indirectly accessible. Sense is supplemented by various impulses and artifices, which we have described. These justify themselves by their success in rendering indirect knowledge equivalent to direct knowledge; and thus making the internal order of thought so far represent the external order of things, that the one may be relied on in lieu of the other, and our actions be regulated by our prevision of their consequences.