THE UNKNOWABLE 



The Oxford school has had to confine itself to 

 that small section of the synthetic philosophy with 

 which its limitations permitted it in any manner to 

 deal. Such writers could not attack the Principles 

 of Biology, to take an instance, for reasons too ob- 

 vious to name. The fact that the idea of evolution 

 is essentially independent of the section upon the 

 unknowable explains a circumstance which is at 

 first sight difficult to interpret the fact, namely, 

 that Principal Caird, for instance, while scorning 

 what he regards as the basis of the evolution 

 philosophy the first section can yet issue vol- 

 ume after volume with the word evolution in its 

 title and as its guiding idea. Even the Oxford 

 school is compelled to accept the Spencerian con- 

 ceptions but fancies itself absolved from the ne- 

 cessity of making acknowledgment, because it fan- 

 cies that it has already disposed of this thinker by 

 its criticisms upon a small section of his philoso- 

 phy, the truth of which, however, is demonstrably 

 non-essential to the validity of the rest. 



But though the order of phenomena the body 

 of science, that is to say is capable of study and 

 unification, whatever our theory of ultimate reality 

 may be, or, indeed, in the absence of any theory as 

 to reality, yet all thinking persons admit that this 

 question as to ultimate reality is supreme and 

 of infinitely greater importance than any question 

 whatsoever with which science deals. The mind 

 of man can never rest content even with the most 

 perfect and complete knowledge of phenomena 

 333 



