1098 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 
view) in response to two interests: one, the instinct of physical 
self-preservation, here voicing its crude concept of all action as 
absolute spatial contact ; the other, a need of intellectual unity in 
the world—its conformance to our thought. 
Truth itself, so much worshipped by this century—what is it but 
an Ideal? For it is not the declaration of such and such a phase 
of reality, but the perfect accord of our concepts, that constitutes 
it ; and just the nature of the universe, the nature of the subject, 
that their form is infinite duration, makes it an ideal. While the 
test of primary Reality is the one moment of consciousness, with- 
out appeal, that of all secondary Reality, consequently of Truth, 
is for ever eluding us. The congruity of our concepts is at every 
fresh moment a matter for re-examination, since the perceptual 
order continually offers fresh matter for fresh phases of thought. 
Thus it is that the first concept is the beginning of a journey 7” 
infinitum. 
Here we might cast a short glance at the fundamental canon of 
this procedure, that of causation: in which, setting aside the 
notion of Force—a notion, it may be remarked, rather derived 
from the fictive power of the mind, thus a metaphor for all our 
treatment of reality, than from our sense of muscular exertion— 
setting this aside, we find two necessary notions, Necessity and 
Uniformity. 
Necessity arises from our consciousness of the formal element, 
Time : every phenomenon must have an antecedent. 
Uniformity—absolutely necessary for science, thus showing 
that this latter aims at being something more than mere registra- 
tion of objective sequences—must, as a concept, be justified by the 
material element. Flame and water do not mingle—NVatura non 
facit saltum. Yes; but who will guarantee the non faciet ? 
The only answer that one can give is that the concepts of 
established sequence—flame and heat—are mutually inclusive ; or, 
of the opposite—flame and water—mutually exclusive. But 
The concepts have been drawn from experience ! 
Or, I may be told that all phenomena are manifestations of one 
law, one reality—phases of atomic grouping ; but the atom does 
not explain its particular appearances ; even if it be endowed 
with all the qualities manifested therein, it does not explain (ah! 
note what we require) why this rather than that—is, in fact, 
only a mark of your and my need for an Absolute. 
And finally, that our assumptions work well, are justified by 
practice ; to conclude therefrom as to their truth, what is it but 
a fur ther assumption as to a harmony existing between our ae 
practice and the nature of Truth (eternal, as we must think her) ? 
—the last ineradicable assumption, presumption, or delusion of 
humanity. 
Weare all following the Chimera. 
