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. Α 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. Other wise, 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 imaginable 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

sense claims to know, and moreover to know the things themselves. The distinction between the knowable appearance and the unknowable "inmost essence," is altogether foreign to it. The contradiction implied in the supposition that Reality (the Universal) can be contained in a particular; in other words, that particular things are real-exists therefore, in its whole strength, in the Inductive Theory itself.

As we have already shown, the perception even of phenomena presupposes Generalization. Things, then, ought not even to seem to be, for this equally involves the contradiction. It is not enough to say that objects make impressions on our senses; for they make impressions also on other objects,one stone, for instance, on another, but there being no generalization, no sensation is caused.

The confounding of Aggregation with Generalization does not, indeed, seem to satisfy even our author, in its practical working. "Why," says he, "is a single instance, in some cases, sufficient for a complete induction, while in others, myriads of concurring instances, without a single exception, known or presumed, go such a very little way toward estab lishing an universal proposition? Whoever can answer this question knows more of the philosophy of logic than the wisest of the ancients, and has solved the great problem of induction." That this difficulty should occur is, indeed, most natural for, were the theory sound, Generalization ought to proceed in exact proportion to the amount of facts collected. The force of Evidence ought to be calculable with mathematical precision: a certain number of instances being given, we must know; -the number being less, believe or conjecture accordingly. But without having the slightest intention of measuring ourselves with even the less wise among the ancients, we think the answer to the problem a very plain one

simply this: that in some cases we apprehend the idea at once; and at other times grope a long time for it. The difficulty is confined to the Inductive System, and our business in this examination has been only to show this, and thereby to answer the arguments founded upon it. As to the ulterior question, what is the true theory of knowledge, we do not propose to go much into it at present.

All empirical or materialistic systems of philosophy are necessarily self-contradictory, since the problem proposed is incompatible with the means employed for its solution. To know is to generalize, but Generalization cannot be accomplish