230 METAPHYSICS 



of the relation of metaphysics to the various already organzied 

 branches of human knowledge more in detail. The admission that 

 there is, or may be, such a study as we have described, seems of itself 

 to involve the recognition that definite knowledge about the character 

 of what really " is, " is attainable, and thus to commit us to a position 

 of sharp opposition both to consistent and thorough-going agnos- 

 ticism and also to the latent agnosticism of Kantian and neo-Kant- 

 ian "critical philosophy." In recognizing ontology as a legitimate 

 investigation, we revert in principle to the "dogmatist" position 

 common, e. g., to Plato, to Spinoza and to Leibniz, that there is genu- 

 ine truth which can be known, and that this genuine truth is not 

 confined to statements about the process of knowing itself. In 

 fact, the "critical" view that the only certain truth is truth about 

 the process of knowing seems to be inherently self-contradictory. 

 For the knowledge that such a proposition as, e. g., "I know only 

 the laws of my own apprehending activity, " is true, would itself be 

 knowledge not about the process of knowing but about the content 

 known. Thus metaphysics, conceived as the science of the general 

 character which distinguishes truth from falsehood, presupposes 

 throughout all knowledge the presence of what we may call a " tran- 

 scendent object," that is, a content which is never identical with 

 the process by which it is apprehended, though it may no doubt be 

 maintained that the two, the process and its content, if distinct, are 

 yet not ultimately separable. That they are in point of fact not 

 ultimately separable would seem to be the doctrine which, under 

 various forms of statement, is common to and characteristic of all the 

 "idealistic" systems of metaphysics. So much then in defense of a 

 metaphysical point of view which seems to be closely akin to that 

 of Mr. Bradley and of Professor Royce, to mention only two names 

 of contemporary philosophers, and which might, I think, for the 

 purpose of putting it in sharp opposition to the " neo-Kantian " 

 view, not unfairly be called, if it is held to need a name, "neo- 

 Leibnizian." 



In passing on to discuss in brief the nature of the boundary lines 

 which divide metaphysics from other branches of study, it seems 

 necessary to start with a clear distinction between the "pure" or 

 "formal" and the "applied" or "empirical" sciences, the more so 

 as in the loose current employment of language the name "science" 

 is frequently given exclusively to the latter. In every-day life, when 

 we are told that a certain person is a "man of science," or as the 

 detestable jargon of our time likes to say, a "scientist, " we expect to 

 find that he is, e. g., a geologist, a chemist, a biologist, or an electrician. 

 We should be a little surprised to find on inquiry that our " man of 

 science" was a pure mathematician, and probably more than a little 

 to learn that he was a formal logician. The distinction between the 



