CHAP. I.] THE STARTING-POINT. 7 



evidently taught that the doctrine of the &quot; relativity of all 

 our knowledge &quot; is a doctrine which is really and absolutely 

 true. But if nothing that we can know corresponds with 

 reality, if nothing we can assert has a more than relative or 

 phenomenal value, this character must also appertain to the 

 doctrine of the relativity of all our knowledge. Either this 

 system of philosophy itself is relative and phenomenal only, 

 or it is absolutely and objectively true. But it must be 

 merely phenomenal if everything known is merely pheno 

 menal. Its value, then, can be only relative and pheno 

 menal ; that is, it has no absolute value, does not correspond 

 with objective reality, and is therefore false. But if it is 

 false that our knowledge is only relative, then some of our 

 knowledge must be absolute ; but this negatives the funda 

 mental position of the whole philosophy. Any philosophy, 

 then, which starts with the assertion that all our knowledge 

 is merely phenomenal refutes itself, and is necessarily 

 suicidal. Every assertor of such a philosophy must be in 

 the position of a man who saws across the branch of a tree, 

 on which he actually sits, at a point between himself and the 

 trunk. If he would save himself he must refrain from 

 destroying that which alone sustains him in his elevated 

 position. 



Waiving, however, this objection, it is proposed to examine 

 here some of the assertions of the know-nothing J^^ 6 

 philosophy, with a view of testing the validity of countered. 

 its fundamental assertions and seeing how far some of its 

 so-called &quot; explanations &quot; are really explanatory or instructive. 

 This examination, however, is not undertaken with the 

 barren purpose of refuting an irrational brain-puzzle, but 

 with the hope and intention of bringing out clearly a primary 

 fact of consciousness in its most important bearings, and so 

 establishing a good starting-point for our whole treatise a 

 foundation revealed to us by the study of nature as it exists 

 in us, in our own mind. 



Before, however, consenting to enter the arena with the 

 Agnostics, it will be well to notice shortly three preliminary 



