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CHAPTER XL 



THE REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 



[This chapter reproduces the substance of the following 

 papers by the present writer : " The Reality of Knowledge," 

 contributed to the Proceedings of the Victoria Institute ; 

 "Evolution and Man's Faculty of Knowledge," contributed to 

 the Homiletic Magazine, and republished in Christianity and 

 Evolution (Nisbet, 1887); and "The Admissions of Agnosti- 

 cism," a review in the British Quarterly, July 1885, of Dr. 

 Matheson's work Can the Old Faith live with the New ?] 



ALL questions of philosophy either begin from, or 

 run up into, the question What is the nature of 

 the faculty whereby we attain to knowledge 1 And 

 all questions of religious philosophy either begin 

 from, or run up into, the question, which is included 

 in the former What is the nature of the faculty 

 whereby we apprehend that which is directly made 

 known neither in external Observation nor in internal 

 Consciousness? Self is made known in Conscious- 

 ness, and the external world in Observation ; but 

 whence comes the idea of that which underlies and 

 transcends them both that which, in the world of 



