THE METAPHYSICS OF SCIENCE.* 



OCIENCE, taken in its modern and restricted sense, is 

 ^^ a knowledge of phenomena and of their orders of 

 succession. 



Sensible phenomena are qualities or changes existing 

 in relation to our faculty of external cognition. The 

 relation is only that mode of existence, as to time, place 

 or nature, which awakens in us a consciousness of power 

 exerted upon us, and a reference of the impression to an 

 external phenomenon as its concomitant. Qualities or 

 changes which exist without such relation are not phe- 

 nomena capable of constituting material of human science. 



An order of succession or mode of sec^uence among 

 phenomena may be cognized as invariable or variable. 



* The following discussion, reproduced by permission, with certain changes 

 and additions, from the North American Review for January 1880, is intended as 

 a protest against the assumptions made by a certain school of modern science. 

 The pretense that any valid science can be constituted out of purely empirical 

 material is a claim which exerts a predisposing influence upon those who feel 

 averse to abstract thinking; and it has acquired a temporary popularity through 

 connection Avith certain brilliant reputations. But the reader is requested to 

 note the fact that the representatives of the school of scientific philosophy here 

 criticised feel themselves irresistibly led, more and more as reflection is ex- 

 tended, into a recognition of those underlying principles of knowledge which, 

 in their full application, vitiate the grounds of all purely empirical science. 

 He is reminded also that those representatives of science, either in the present 

 or the past, who have created the most substantial and enduring reputations are 

 those who have united the philosophic spirit with the strictly scientific; while 

 the utterances of those who deny or ignore the validity of all metempirical 

 grounds of reasoning excite more the astonished admiration of the populace by 

 loud and dogmatic affirmation than the respect and approbation of the thought- 

 ful who make up the final verdicts on reputations. 



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