His real agreement with the modern metaphysi cians.

of metaphysic and theology, however, it may easily be shown that Comte's own theory, like every intelligible view of the world, involves a metaphysic, and ends in a theology; and that he only succeeds in concealing this from himself, because he is unconscious of the presuppositions he makes, because he uses the word "metaphysic" in a narrow and mistaken sense, and because he conceives it, as well as theology, to be bound up with a kind of "transcendentalism," which all the great metaphysicians of modern times agree in rejecting.

Hostility to metaphysic, if by metaphysic be meant the explanation of the facts of experience by entities or causes, which cannot be verified in experience or shown to stand in any definite relation to it, is the common feature of all modern philosophy, idealist or or sensationalist. It is as clearly manifested in Descartes as in Bacon, in Kant and Hegel as in Locke and Hume. If Bacon accuses the scholastics of anticipating nature by unverified hypotheses or presuppositions not derived from the study of nature, Descartes is no less emphatic in his denunciation of a philosophy of authority, and

in his demand for a fundamental reconstruction of belief. If the former bases all truth upon experience, does not the latter seek the evidence of his principles in the most intimate of experiences, the consciousness of self? Leibnitz is as ready as Locke, Kant is as ready as Hume, to maintain that philosophy must not introduce transcendent principles into its explanations of experience. As Luther rejected a God who did not reveal himself directly to the heart and intelligence of his worshipper, but only through the mediation of a priest and in an external tradition, so the greatest modern philosophers of all schools are agreed in rejecting all principles which do not find their evidence in being an integral part of the experience of men. It would be too much to say that they all consistently develop this principle to its necessary consequence, or that traces of scholastic modes of thought are not to be found even in those of them who most strongly denounce scholasticism; on the contrary, it may be admitted that no one before Kant saw what was involved in the renunciation of the transcendent as an object of knowledge. Even Kant himself did not see all

E

His antecedents.

its consequences. Still, the assertion of the principle itself, and the effort to realize it, is perhaps the most general and invariable characteristic of modern philosophy. In so far, therefore, as what Comte means by metaphysics is anything like the scholastic philosophy, with its transcendent or authoritative principles, no objection need be taken to his assertion that metaphysic is an exploded mode of thought, from which the philosopher and the man of science must now seek to free themselves. But then it must be added that, in this sense, none of the greater speculative writers of modern times is, in principle, a metaphysician; and that the metaphysic which they cultivate is of a totally different nature. If, indeed, we could consider Comte's remarks as aimed at the great metaphysicians of his own day, at Kant and his successors, the description, and therefore the censure founded upon it, would be almost ludicrously inapplicable.

To understand the bearing of Comte's denial Locke's of metaphysics, however, we must keep in view knowledge. his historical antecedents. This negation was, as

theory of

I have already said, part of his heritage from the

Locke's New Way of Ideas.

67

sensationalist philosophy of the last century, which had reached its most consequent and definite expression in Hume. It was a conclusion, the first step towards which was taken by Locke in his attack upon the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas. In Locke's view, innate ideas were principles apprehended independently of all experience-possessions of the individual mind which it finds in itself at once, and apart from any process of development, or intercourse with anything but itself. And, to disprove their existence, it was enough for him to point to the fact that, prior to such intercourse with the world, the mind has no contents at all, and can scarcely be said even to exist. This obvious truth, however, was immediately confused by him with the doctrine that reality—the objective world of individual things as such-is immediately given in sense apart from any "work of the mind," and that any ideas or universals added by thought to the data of sense, must, ipso facto, be fictions. In making this assumption, Locke was yielding to a tendency of thought which had already shown itself in the nominalism of Hobbes. Locke, indeed, was not a nominalist, he was what is called

Cause

a conceptualist; but in the Essay on the Human Understanding no distinct ground is ever stated for giving to universals more than that subjective value which even Hobbes allows to them. In his criticism of the ideas of substance and cause, Locke is always seeking to reduce fact and reality to the isolated sensations through which, as he supposes, individual things are given. And the same tendency of thought leads him also to regard the individual mind as apprehensive only of its own ideas and sensations, and excluded from all direct contact with the world. It soon, however, became obvious to the followers of Locke, that, on these terms, no knowledge, or even semblance of knowledge, is possible; that the individual mind, if it were thus confined to its own isolated feelings, could never dream of the existence of an objective world; and that to make possible the reference of sensations to objects, it is necessary that they should be connected together according to general principles. In other words, it became obvious that the universal, or some substitute for the universal, is required to make knowledge and experience possible. And to meet this want the theory