III.]

of the "Unknowable."

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their aim; (7) that it is a power which gives rythm of motion, so that all the universe marches in tune to the grandest music known to man; (8) that it is a power which evolves phenomena out of fundamental reality; (9) that it is a power which gives law to Evolution simple and compound; (10) that it is a power which makes the homogeneous unstable; (11) that it is a power which produces multiplication of effects; (12) that it is a power making things segregate; (13) that it is a power which leads to dissolution, and-but with these thirteen affirmations, when you find out what they mean, and if you can believe the information true, it seems to me that Mr. Spencer has shown very conclusively that the "Unknowable" is very knowable. But you say he means it is not scientifically knowable. I am rather dubious about this scientific knowing, as a different thing from other knowing; but if scientists like to step aside in this matter, the contention with Spencerian Unknowable philosophy is not a whit affected. This is a field of reason, and the principle still remains. Spencer tells me that a certain thing is unknowable; he then tells me a great many things that it is not, and a great many more things that it is, and I must just conclude that the thing is not unknowable, or all this information is a delusion and a snare. But some one will say the information is superficial-not exhaustive-does not show the ultimate essence. But that is true of all you know or can know of my fountain pen of all you know or can know of what Mr. Spencer calls the Knowable. Where, then, is the difference which divides the Unknowable and the Knowable. So far as the laws of knowledge go, there is no difference; and to make such a distinction is a philosophical fiction, which only logical childhood or logical blindness could tolerate, making Mr. Cook's comment true," Mr. Spencer's philosophy is good enough for beginners, if they wish to be misled from the beginning."

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Relativity of knowledge."

[LECT.

The knowable to man extends from here to everything that can be but touched with the uttermost stretch of thought, of which you can only say it is: the perfectly knowable to man has never yet been found. But between these two extremes there is a whole universe of knowledge that is true knowledge, and this leads to

CHAPTER III.

IS KNOWLEDGE REAL ON RELATIVE ?

Is my knowledge of things real or symbolical, fact or fiction? And here we come face to face with another Spencerian castle, which from afar seems to be an impregnable fortress to many a mind unused to logical thought. But come near and try to touch it, and you find it nothing but the inverted mirage of that fundamental reality consigned to the abysses, reflected through empty space, a phantom castle in the air. Mr. Spencer tells us that all knowledge is relative, even of the knowable. Now what is this relativity of knowledge? If he means that our knowledge is measured by our power to know; that I can see only so far as my vision, extends; that I can perceive only so far as my perception goes; that I can think only so far as as my think-force ranges; that I know only so far as my knowing faculties reach; why that is not only true, but the veriest truism that any prattling baby who has learnt to say "I can't" knows perfectly well, and needs no great philosopher or cumbrous tomes to tell. But that is not exactly what Mr. Spencer means; he says that everything we know is a phenomenon of the fundamental unknowable reality; that we can know these phenomena only in their relations to one another and to the ultimate reality; that behind every one, in every one there is unfathomable mystery; that our knowledge is only symbolical, our teachings only symbolical, our thoughts only fancies: "in itself" nothing is known.

III.]

The " Thing-in-itself" fiction.

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Now before we test this piece of abstract generalization by a bit of concrete fact, just allow me to ask how it comes that the great law of continuity in the universe must be broken just as soon as it reaches me? Why is there placed a great impassable gulf between me and all the world beyond me? Why must I from my isolation peer out into the dim outside with smoked glasses, conscious that all I see is unreal phantom? Is it not an inspiring thing for me to be compelled to think that I am now standing in a symbolic house, and speaking to a symbolic, unreal audience, who listen with symbolic ears, to a symbolic lecturer who symbolically speaks with a symbolic mouth, reads from a symbolic MS., written with a symbolic pen, fed with symbolic ink-all the out-working of an unknowable mystery!! And more inspiring still to be told that for me the symbol ought to be as satisfactory as the reality. The very statement looks suspicious. Now let us try the constitution of the doctrine itself, for after all men may call this mere sentiment and no argument. Let us test the thing by a concrete example and see how it works. This whole brilliant ignis fatuus comes from the learned talk about the-thing-in-itself, and the-mind-in-itself, of the Philosophy of Kant, Hamilton & Co. Let us first deal with this "thing-in-itself." But laying aside the misty abstraction, let us apply the philosophy to a cat. Now this cat, says Kant, is double; what you see and feel as cat are all phenomena of a cat. But there is besides these a something on which these catphenomena are all fastened: that is the noumenon, or "catin-itself." "Just so," says Mr. Spencer; "only say that what you see is a symbolic cat, and what you don't see is the cat in reality." Now just one or two questions. Is the real cat different from this phenomena cat, or does the cat-in-itself change itself when showing forth these cat-phenomena ? If so, then are these real phenomena, or are there also phenomena-inthemselves besides what we see? If we take away all these

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What we know is real or

[LECT.

cat-phenomena, is there a cat left? But if the real cat does not change its reality when becoming visible in these cat-phenomena, and if these cat-phenomena are real phenomena of a real cat, when you see the phenomena do you not see real parts of a real cat? If you know that cat's color, hair, eyes, do you not know something of the real cat? If you skin the cat and get to its muscles and skeleton, do you not know something more about a real cat? If you ask a good physiologist about it, he can tell you about blood vessels, and nerves and tissues and a great many more more curious and wonderful things; and you ask the scientific physiologist, who has no interest in philosophical system building, if these things belong to the symbolical cat or the real cat, and he will look at you in pity, with visions of an insane asylum before his astonished eyes. The fact is that neither Common Sense, nor Science, nor Bible faith, knows any thing about any real cat excepting and besides that bundle of cat-phenomena that you see with your eyes and feel with your hands. And the whole sublime fiction about a something on which phenomena are tacked, a cat-in-reality, is the undisputed possession of a needy philosophy, which has bid good bye to common sense, to true science, and has exchanged a manly faith in real things, for a puerile credulity in myths.

I begin to feel that I am nearer a real world again. But there is still another poser. These philosophers tell us that we know these things only by our senses, and our senses may deceive us, and our weak faculties may deceive us, and so on. Without going through the form of an argument, I would just say that all the conclusions and actions of common sense, all the researches of science, all the whole structure of our knowledge, rest on these foundation stones of our primitive experiences, borne in upon our minds by appropriate senses. Reason must take as ultimate data for action the product of each power, for each has its own work to do which can be done

III.]

we are victims to lying Senses.

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by no other faculty. What these powers bring us becomes a part of our knowledge. If my eyes do not really see, see only symbolically, then they lie to me. But we trust our "faculties because they are persistent, coherent, ultimate." Faith in our senses and all our faculties is essential to common sense, to every step of science, and is a branch of the Christians, faith in the God who made these faculties of sense and of reason for real use and not for deception or symbolism. And any philosophy that begins by rejecting faith in God, and goes on to throw discredit on our senses, and our faculties, will most assuredly awaken a suspicion of the soundness of its own principles, confessedly built up by mental powers which the philosopher himself tells us are not to be trusted.

It is most certainly true that our senses, our faculties do sometimes err, make mistakes. The eye may be blurred and see incorrectly; so with every faculty. But they may be cured, and act truly. Or if not, it matters little how they act, for there will be no such thing as true action, only a choice between a variety of lies. Common Sense, Science, and Christianity all believe that the things we see are real, and the powers with which we apprehend and comprehend are real and true and to be trusted, and this brings us to

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE TREND OF KNOWLEdge.

All true knowledge, all true reasoning, all true philosophy must move along on certain fixed lines, call these lines what you may, or come to an ignoble collapse, as indeed most of the philosophies of man have done. You cannot feed the body with elements foreign to bodily elements, you cannot strengthen the mind with thought foreign to its constitution. All thought must be along the lines of the mental constitution, starting out with axiomatic intuitions. No matter where the intuitions