is the cause of our knowing that it has rained. These two things the Premise which produces our conviction, and the Cause which produces that of which we are convincedare the more likely to be confounded together, in the looseness of colloquial language, from the circumstance that (as has been above remarked) they frequently coincide; as, e.g. when we infer that the ground will be wet from the fall of rain which produces that wetness. And hence it is that the same words have come to be applied, in common, to each kind of Sequence; e.g. an Effect is said to 'follow' from a Cause, and a Conclusion to 'follow' from the Premises; the words 'Cause' and 'Reason,' are each applied indifferently, both to a Cause properly so called, and to the Premise of an Argument; though 'Reason,' in strictness of speaking, should be confined to the latter. Therefore,' 'hence,' 'consequently,' etc., and also 'since,' 'because,' and 'why,' have, likewise, a corresponding ambiguity.

§ 215. "The multitude of words which bear this double meaning (and that in all languages) greatly increases our liability to be misled by it; since thus the very means men resort to for ascertaining the sense of any expression are infected with the very same ambiguity; e.g. if we inquire what is meant by a 'Cause,' we shall be told that it is that from which something 'follows;' or, which is indicated by the words 'therefore,' 'consequently,' etc., all of which expressions are as equivocal and uncertain in their signification as the original one. It is in vain to attempt ascertaining by the balance the true amount of any commodity if uncertain weights are placed in the opposite scale. Hence it is that so many writers, in investigating the Cause to which any

fact or phenomenon is to be attributed, have assigned that which is not a Cause, but only a Proof that the fact is so; and have thus been led into an endless train of errors and perplexities.”*

c1. The subordination of human conduct to absolute law is destructive of individuality.

§ 216. The influence of positive philosophy on merely intellectual progress it may not be out of place here briefly to consider. Metaphysical speculation it is the avowed object of positivism to extinguish. What would be the result of this is stated by Sir W. Hamilton in the following brilliant passage:

* Whately's Rhet., part i. chap. ii. 2 3.

This is shown in science itself. Positivism, as adjusted by Comte, is to be a finality beyond which discovery is not to go. Even the astronomer, according to the positivist chief, is to be admonished lest he push his investigations too far.

"We subjectively, then, condense all astronomical theories round our globe as a centre; and we absolutely reject all theories which, as disconnected with our globe, are by that fact at once mere idle questions, even granting them to be within our reach. This leads us finally to eliminate, not merely the so-called sidereal astronomy, but all planetary studies which concern stars invisible to the naked eye, and which have, consequently, no real influence on the earth. The true domain of astronomy will now, as at the beginning of things, be limited to the five planets which have always been known, together with the sun, equally the centre of their movements as of the earth's and the moon, our only satellite in the heavens.

* *

* * *

"We put aside all inquiries, as absurd as they are idle, as to the temperature of the stars or their internal constitution. "Biology may be led to lay too much stress on insignificant beings or acts."

"Nor would such a result have been desirable, had the one exclusive opinion been true, as it was false-innocent, as it was corruptive. If the accomplishment of philosophy imply a cessation of discussion-if the result of speculation be a paralysis of itself; the consummation of knowledge is the condition of intellectual barbarism. Plato has prooundly defined man, 'the hunter of truth;' for in this chase, as in others, the pursuit is all in all, the success comparatively nothing. 'Did the Almighty,' says Lessing, 'holding in His right hand Truth, and in His left Search after Truth, deign to proffer me the one I might prefer;—in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request-Search after Truth.' We exist only as we energize; pleasure is the reflex of unimpeded energy; energy is the mean by which our faculties are developed; and a higher energy the end which their development proposes. In action is thus contained the existence, happiness, improvement, and perfection of our being; and knowledge is only precious as it may afford a stimulus to the exercise of our powers, and the condition of their more complete activity. Speculative truth is, therefore, subordinate to speculation itself; and its value is directly measured by the quantity of energy which it occasions - immediately in its discovery-mediately through its consequences. Life to Endymion was not preferable to death; aloof from practice, a waking error is better than a sleeping truth. Neither, in point of fact, is there found any proportion between the possession of truths and the development of the mind in which they are deposited. Every learner in science is now familiar with more truths than Aristotle or Plato ever dreamt of know

ing; yet, compared with the Stagirite or the Athenian, how few among our masters of modern science rank higher than intellectual barbarians! Ancient Greece and modern Europe prove, indeed, that 'the march of intellect' is no inseparable concomitant of 'the march of science ;'—that the cultivation of the individual is not to be rashly confounded with the progress of the species.

"But if the possession of theoretical facts be not convertible with mental improvement; and if the former be important only as subservient to the latter; it follows that the comparative utility of a study is not to be principally estimated by the complement of truths which it may communicate, but by the degree in which it determines our higher capacities to action. But though this be the standard by which the different methods, the different branches, and the different masters of philosophy ought to be principally (and it is the only criterion by which they can all be satisfactorily) tried; it is nevertheless a standard by which neither methods, nor sciences, nor philosophers have ever yet been even inadequately appreciated. The critical history of philosophy, in this spirit, has still to be written; and when written, how opposite will be the rank, which on the higher and more certain standard, it will frequently adjudge—to the various branches of knowledge, and the various modes of their cultivation-to different ages, and countries, and individuals, from that which has been hitherto partially awarded, on the vacillating authority of the lower!

"On this ground (which we have not been able to state, far less adequately to illustrate,) we rest the pre-eminent utility of metaphysical speculations. That they comprehend

all the sublimest objects of our theoretical and moral interest; that every (natural) conclusion concerning God, the soul, the present worth and the future destiny of man, is exclusively metaphysical, will be at once admitted. But we do not found the importance, on the paramount dignity, of the pursuit. It is as the best gymnastic of the mind—as a mean, principally, and almost exclusively conducive to the highest education of our noblest powers, that we would vindicate to these speculations the necessity which has too frequently been denied them. By no other intellectual application (and least of all by physical pursuits) is the soul thus reflected on itself, and its faculties concentred in such independent, vigorous, unwonted, and continued energy; by none, therefore, are its best capacities so variously and intensely evolved. 'Where there is most life, there is the victory.*""

§ 217. Without accepting all the positions laid down in the remarkable passage which is given above, it is enough for the present purpose to call attention to the truth of the main position Sir W. Hamilton establishes, viz., that it is essential to intellectual life, as well as to spiritual, that there should be a continued striving toward the infinite, a gradual growth and strengthening by an approximation to the centre of Truth and Grace.

§ 218. So much for freedom of thought. As to the influence of positivism on freedom of action, there is still less room to doubt. Individual liberty, as a factor, did not enter into the calculations of the great founder of

* Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions, p. 46; Harper's edition.