86 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



become sources of mental weakness in another, as 

 we are very likely to have what the French would 

 call " the defects of our excellences," so we 

 may, perhaps, count it as a weakness, or at least 

 a limitation, in Mr. Wright that he was some 

 what over-suspicious of all attempts at construct- 

 ing ideally coherent and comprehensive systems. 

 That there is coherency throughout the processes 

 of Nature he would certainly have admitted, in so 

 far as belief in the universality of causation is to 

 be construed as such an admission. But that 

 there is any such discernible coherency in the re- 

 sults of causation as would admit of description 

 in a grand series of all-embracing generalizations, 

 I think he would have doubted or denied. Such 

 denial or doubt seems, at least, to be implied in 

 his frequent condemnation of cosmic or synthetic 

 systems of philosophy as metaphysical " anticipa- 

 tions of Nature," incompatible with the true spirit 

 of Baconisra. The denial or doubt would have 

 referred, perhaps, not so much to the probable 

 constitution of Nature as to the possibilities of 

 human knowledge. He would have argued that 

 the stupendous group of events which we call the 

 universe consists so largely of unexplored, or even 

 unsuspected, phenomena that the only safe gen- 

 eralizations we can make concerning it must needs 



