always remain, entirely in the dark." (I. 81.) Thus it is often said, that, from the general limitedness of human faculties, we ought not, a priori, to require or expect human knowledge to attain to any thing more than probability. To demand for Science absolute and necessary truth, seems to many persons a kind of sacrilege;-at least the extreme of presumption. For if we regard Truth as an aggregate, the largest conceivable aggregate will still be a finite quantity, distinct from the infinite not in degree, but in kind. But, in the first place, it ought to be distinctly understood and confessed, that Probability, of itself, can have no scientific value. We do, it is true, often attribute high scientific importance to what are only probabilities, but this is on the supposition that they are not to remain probabilities, but to become truths. Their importance consists in the prospect of Knowledge; and if this be absolutely cut off, as in the Inductive Theory, their value is at an end. In the second place, we maintain that this whole theory of Probability is founded on an inadmissible postulate; namely, that Cognition is nothing higher than Sensation, (I. 78);— that there is nothing in Knowledge which our senses could not perceive, provided they were perfect of their kind, (I. 361,) and thus nothing but a mechanical aggregation of particulars. That the material world is such an aggregate of particulars, we admit. But at the same time it is allowed that we have no communication with objects, except through the senses, and that "sensations are states of the sentient mind, not states of the body." Cognition, therefore, is based, at all events, not directly on any thing material, but on something mental. As appeared at the beginning of our examination, we have no direct cognition of objects, but all our knowledge presupposes a mental process; namely, Connotation. Connotation, however, is Generalization. To connote, is to attach to the particular an attribute; that is, a general character. A particular attribute, an attribute which does not attach the particular to a class, is a contradiction in terms. Mr. Mill himself says, (II. 211,) "In every act of what is called observation, there is at least one inference-from the sensations to the presence of the object; from the marks or diagnostics, to the entire phenomenon;" that is, we infer the general character indicated by the particular sensations. And again, (212,) "We cannot describe a fact, without implying more than the fact. The perception is only of one individual thing; but to describe it is to affirm a connection between it and every other thing which is either denoted or connoted by any of the terms used." Or rather, we should say, what we perceive is an individual thing; but the thing, as an object or phenomenon, is generalized. This is what is meant by the distinction between phenomena and things in themselves. "There is not the slightest reason," says Mr. Mill, (I. 78,) "for believing that what we call the sensible qualities of the object are a type of any thing inherent in itself, or bear any affinity to its own nature. A cause does not, as such, resemble its effects; an east wind is not like the steam of boiling water; why, then, should matter resemble our sensations? Why should the inmost nature of fire or water resemble the impressions made by these objects. upon our senses? And if not on the principle of resemblance, on what other principle can the manner in which objects affect us through our senses afford us any insight into the inherent nature of those objects? It may therefore safely be laid down. as a truth both obvious in itself, and admitted by all whom it is at present necessary to take into consideration, that, of the outward world, we know, and can know absolutely nothing, except the sensations which we experience from it." That is to say, our thoughts, and even the representations we make to ourselves of outward things, are not material things, but of a nature altogether distinct from Matter; and Sensation, considered as mere passivity to outward impulses, is an abstraction, and not a fact of experience. In this statement of Mr. Mill's, however, as in Kant's distinction between phenomena and noumena, the notion seems to remain, that the reason we perceive only phenomena lies in a weakness of our powers; that phenomena are still things, but as it were the shadows or ghosts of the things, and that if our faculties were more perfect we should perceive the things themselves lying behind. Of the same sort is the notion elsewhere alluded to, that conceptions are "copies of the things," or "impressions from without." (I. 361, II. 223.) These and the like views all flow out from the primary assumption that Reality is equivalent to Matter. Now that "Matter is the test of all things under the sun," we are ready to allow. Whatever does not manifest itself we are at liberty to conclude does not exist: de non apparentibus et de non existentibus eadem est ratio. But that material existence is not Reality, we think sufficiently appears from the principles of the Inductive Philosophy itself. According to it, the only character common to all the material world, (its essence therefore) is Succession. Every natural event tends to destroy itself, and bring something else in its place. The bud makes way for the flower, and the flower for the fruit. The growth of the tree is a hastening to decay. Every chemical and every mechanical force aims at being neutralized or spent. The spring strives to uncoil: the acid seeks the alkali. There is throughout nature a perpetual reference of each thing to something else; each by itself is incomplete, and partly in another. Material existence is thus an incomplete, insufficient existence; the idea of the thing is not realized in the thing itself, but partly in another thing, and this again in another, and so on to infinity. Reality, therefore, or the existence of the Idea, manifests itself in the phenomenon: but as Negation; namely, a negation of the form of existence (Particularity): and affirmation of the form is negation of the reality manifested in it. This is shown, for instance, in the effect of poisons on animal organization, alluded to by Mr. Mill, (I. 481.) Their effect, he says, is "the conversion of the animal substance (by combination with the poison) into a chemical compound, held together by so powerful a force as to resist the subsequent action of the ordinary causes of decomposition. Now, organic life. . . consisting in a continual state of decomposition and recomposition of the different organs and tissues, whatever incapacitates them for the decomposition destroys life." So soon as the form is made permanent, life, which is the reality manifested in it, is destroyed. Material existence, or particularity, accordingly, is an embodied self-contradiction; a contradiction between the form and the substance, and thus a prolonged annihilation, the form of which is Change, or abstractly, Time, and the assertion that we know only particulars, must be coupled with the admission that these particulars, or "facts," are nothing more than phenomena; to know which is to know their unreality. Another prevailing notion is, that Matter is a temporary reality; that though it does not endure for ever, yet it contains a certain amount of Being. But Time, as is shown by the old puzzle of Achilles and the tortoise, cannot be divided into independent moments; that is, cannot be really divided. Otherwise, each moment would be an eternity. Every force, say the mathematicians, will act for ever, unless impeded. Not that we have any experience of a force acting for ever; but if we isolate a force, it necessarily becomes eternal, since the notion of Existence does not include, but excludes, non-existence. A temporary reality, therefore, is a false reality; a reality which is partly unreal. The succession of Time is the development of this unreality. That we sensuously perceive only Phenomena, as already remarked, is so far from being incompatible with a knowledge of objective reality, that, on the contrary, it simply declares the superficial nature of the unreality that we see in things. That which changes is not the reality but the unreality; and to annihilate this is to affirm its opposite. So that to reduce Matter to a superficial and transient form, is not to deny, but to affirm the Reality it contains; and Change, though apparently a mere negation, or destruction of Matter, is in truth affirmative, being a negation of the negative. Though on the other hand it is not to be imagined that the reality is something existing apart, behind the phenomenon; for the phenomenon is nothing else than the reality, appearing, or existing, though in an inadequate form. It is no degradation, therefore, to spiritual things, that they exist materially. Man, for instance, exists as body, and we may say that his body is a complete incarnation of his soul; provided we keep in mind that this is an inadequate or partially false, (and thus transitory,) existence, and do not confine the spirit to its temporary manifestations. As we have already seen, all Knowledge is Generalization. But to generalize the particular is to destroy its particularity. Knowledge of particulars, therefore, is a knowledge of their connection with and dependence upon a general principle. And here we see the root of the inability of the Inductive theory to form a satisfactory generalization. Each particular refers to some other, and this again to another, and so on. When we come to examine one, therefore, we are necessarily referred to the next, and thus the problem is prolonged to infinity, or rather to indefinitude. Thus it is that Mr. Mill makes the term general equivalent to indefinite; whereas it properly denotes what is universal, and therefore definite, in opposition to what is accidental, and thus indefinable. Were each object in Nature a definite fact, it would be necessary to study each separate thing by itself; each grain of sand on the sea-shore would require as special and careful examination as any other fact. The problem proposed by the Inductive philosophy to construct knowledge out of particular facts-is the wildest of chimeras; the nearest approach that an aggre --- gate of finites can make to the universal, is the Indefinite; that which requires to be, but is not, finished. There is no reason, therefore, to attribute the failure to the weakness of human faculties, when the task proposed is an absurdity. It would derogate nothing from Omnipotence to say that two hills cannot be made without a valley between. The talk about the finite nature of Man, and his consequent inability to grasp universal Truth, betrays an entire misconception of the whole process of Knowing. The whole argument is this: a finite, that is, a thing, must have definite dimensions, and thus cannot contain the Infinite. But a thing can no more contain a sensation than it can the Infinite. The difficulty, then, would be not how we can have absolute Knowledge, but how we can have any knowledge, or even sensation. If, then, it be allowed that we mentally perceive (are conscious) at all, there is no reason why Knowledge should be limited. Knowledge, as we have seen, is Generalization. Now what grounds have we for supposing that the generalization must be imperfect? For on this ground alone can Knowledge be partial. That our Knowledge of the Universe is in point of fact incomplete, no one will question. New objects and new facilities for observation are presented to us every day. And if by Knowledge we understand an aggregate of empirical facts and observations, this incompleteness is a defect in kind as well as degree. We cannot generalize safely until we have gathered the Universe into a heap, and weighed, measured, and sifted the whole of it. This, however, being impossible, either Knowledge is so too, or else the theory is wrong. It will not help us at all to call our present Knowledge an approximation, as if it were defective only in degree. There is not the slightest hope that all mankind, in any imag inable lapse of ages, could exhaustively analyze even a single grain of sand;-for this reason-that Matter is divisible indefinitely, and can be stretched to match any extent of time. This, however, is at least as fatal to empirical Knowledge as to any other. Of what use is it to talk about a partial generalization, when the part must be an infinitely (or rather indefinitely) small quantity, - and thus a merely abstract or imaginary amount? Degree and kind are here one. We either know nothing, or else the argument against absolute Knowledge falls to the ground. Here again the Inductive Theory is beaten by its own weapons. It refers for its authority to Consciousness, Experience, or Common-sense. But Common |