122 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [vn. 



absent As all knowledge is relative, the notion of anything being 



necessary must be banished with other traditions.&quot; 1 



There is much here that expresses the spirit of the &quot; New 

 Philosophy,&quot; if by that term be meant the spirit of modern 

 science ; but I cannot but marvel that the assembled wisdom 

 and learning of Edinburgh should have uttered no sign of 

 dissent, when Comte was declared to be the founder of these 

 doctrines. No one will accuse Scotchmen of habitually forget 

 ting their great countrymen ; but it was enough to make David 

 Hume turn in his grave, that here, almost within ear-shot of his 

 house, an instructed audience should have listened, without a 

 murmur, while his most characteristic doctrines were attributed 

 to a French writer of fifty years later date, in whose dreary 

 and verbose pages we miss alike the vigour of thought and the 

 exquisite clearness of style of the man whom I make bold to 

 term the most acute thinker of the eighteenth century even 

 though that century produced Kant. 



But I did not come to Scotland to vindicate the honour of 

 one of the greatest men she has ever produced. My business is 

 to point out to you that the only way of escape out of the crass 

 materialism in which we just now landed, is the adoption and 

 strict working-out of the very principles which the Archbishop 

 holds up to reprobation. 



Let us suppose that knowledge is absolute, and not relative, 

 and therefore, that our conception of matter represents that 

 which it really is. Let us suppose, further, that we do know 

 more of cause and effect than a certain definite order of suc 

 cession among facts, and that we have a knowledge of the neces 

 sity of that succession and hence, of necessary laws and I, for 

 my part, do not see what escape there is from utter materialism 

 and necessarianism. For it is obvious that our knowledge of 

 what we call the material world is, to begin with, at least as 

 certain and definite as that of the spiritual world, and that our 

 acquaintance with law is of as old a date as our knowledge of 



1 &quot;The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry,&quot; pp. 4 and 5. 



