434 Dr. St. George Mivart [June 5, 



science, run directly counter to a system of thought which is widely 

 current to-day, and which has now and again found expression in this 

 theatre. The popular views I refer to may be conveniently summed 

 up as follow : 



1. All our knowledge is merely relative. 



2. We can know nothing but phenomena. 



3. We have no supremely certain knowledge but that of our own 



feelings, and therefore we have none such of our continuous 

 existence. 



4. We cannot emerge from subjectivity or attain to real know- 



ledge of anything objective. 

 Therefore, either I am very much mistaken, or those who uphold the 

 views I have just summed up are much mistaken. 



It may seem presumptuous on my part to come forward here 

 to-night to controvert a system upheld by men of such undoubted 

 ability and so unquestionably competent in science, as are men who 

 uphold the system I oppose. I feel, therefore, that a few words of 

 personal apology and explanation are due from me. 



For full five and thirty years I have been greatly interested in 

 such questions. But when my intellectual life began, it was as a 

 student and disciple of that school with which the names of John 

 Stuart Mill, Alexander Bain, G. H. Lewes, Herbert Spencer, and 

 Professor Huxley have been successively associated — more or less 

 closely. The works of writers of that school I studied to the best 

 of my ability, and I had the advantage of personal acquaintance 

 with some of the more distinguished of them. Thus, by conversation, 

 I was much better enabled to learn what their system was, than I 

 could have learned by reading only. 



However, by degrees, I became sceptical about the validity of 

 the system I had, at first, ingenuously adopted ; but it took me not a 

 few years to clearly see my way through all the philosoj)hical 

 fallacies — as I now regard them — in which I found myself entangled. 

 T say " see my way through," for I did not free myself from them 

 by drawing back, but by pushing forwards — slowly working my way 

 through them and out on the other side. These circumstances con- 

 stitute my apology for appearing before you as I do. I have been a 

 dweller in the country which I am willing to aid any one to explore 

 who may wish to exj^lore it. 



I might now at once return to further consider those implications 

 of science to which I have called your attention, but I think it will 

 be better to first briefly pass two important matters in review. The 

 first concerns our means of investigation as to such (fundamental 

 questions ; the second relates to our ultimate grounds for forming 

 judgments about them. We have to consider how fundamental truth 

 can be acquired and tested. Evidently the only means of which we 

 can make use are our thoughts — our reason — our intellectual activity. 

 " Thoughts " may be, and should be, carefully examined and criticised, 

 but however much we may do so and whatever the results we arrive 



