512 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



creed such as should satisfy those who had discarded the 

 ruling religious creed as well as the idealism of Con- 

 tinental thinkers. The simple answer which Herbert 

 Spencer gives to the problem : What is Reality ? is 

 this, that what we have so far termed the truly Real or 

 the ultimate Ground of everything, is unknowable to us, 

 though it exists as an underlying Power; and, secondly, 

 that all we can know about Reality is confined to the 

 phenomenal world or to appearance. Though not ex- 

 actly in the same words, Herbert Spencer's philosophy 

 thus admits that twofold meaning of the word Reality on 

 which I have dwelt in this chapter, and which has come 

 down to us from antiquity, notably through the writings 

 of Plato. 



Through this doctrine of the Unknowable, English 

 philosophy has arrived at a similar position to that 

 occupied by several thinkers abroad, for it takes as its 

 fundamental principle that we do not know Reality, 

 directly and immediately, by intuition or instinct, but 

 that we know it only in its appearance through the 

 many things and events which lie in and around us 

 or are known to us historically. As these different 

 regions which make up the phenomenal world offer 

 plenty of occasions for observation and study ; as, more- 

 over, this study has to be pursued on definite lines and 

 by precise methods, there is room for a science of First 

 Principles, in addition to the various sciences which 

 carry out their investigations by adopting and using those 

 principles without a previous critical examination of their 

 scope, origin, and validity. Such an examination can 

 be termed metaphysical, although it either disregards, or 



