37 



them through a disturbing medium. But such a sceptical 

 and despairing conclusion does not necessarily follow. It 

 depends itself on an assumption, and indeed on a visual 

 metaphor. This assumption, too rarely examined, is that 

 what is not altogether true must be altogether false ; and 

 that the succession of categories is the aimless substitution 

 of one dominant error for another. But there may be 

 degrees in knowledge as there are grades in goodness ; 

 and it is possible that although we only know in part we 

 do know in part. The " medium," instead of intervening 

 between us and the facts, converting them into phenomena, 

 may be a principle which so far interprets the facts. And 

 the succession of such media, the substitution of one 

 general hypothesis for another, may not be accidental, but 

 may follow some deeper law which secures that the move- 

 ment of human thought shall be continuous, rational, and 

 self-enriching. It may be the gradual self-manifestation 

 of the principle in virtue of which the world subsists. 



Whether this be verily the fact or not can be seen only 

 by an analysis of the relation of the successive categories, 

 and of their successive embodiments in systems of thought. 

 We cannot enter upon this fundamental question here. 1 

 But we may learn something useful for the science of 

 human society if we examine briefly how such transitions 

 are brought about. The attempt may reveal the part 

 which metaphors play in our thinking a matter which 

 social theorists and social reformers have to lay to heart 

 much more deeply than they do at present. 



The unsatisfactory character of any earlier hypothesis 



1 This was the task which Hegel attempted ; and, whether his success 

 in it was great or small, it is a task which philosophy cannot avoid, least 

 of all if the world is spiritual and the idea of evolution holds. 



