38 THE MISUSE OF METAPHORS IN 



reveals itself by the fact that it is not only inadequate to 

 the matter which it professes to explain, but that the 

 explanation which it proffers is self-contradictory. It 

 reveals truths which seem necessary, but which cannot be 

 held together. That is to say, the facts investigated some- 

 how combine aspects which the thought of the facts cannot 

 reconcile. Hence arise controversies that are interminable. 

 They are interminable because each of the conflicting 

 doctrines carries within it an aspect of the truth, and, as 

 it takes that aspect for the whole truth, it is obliged to 

 endeavour to refute its opposite, which is not possible, for 

 truth is a spirit which cannot be laid. 



The impartial observer, the mind which is sufficiently 

 open to admit the truth from both sides, is tempted under 

 such circumstances to despair of human thought. It is 

 held to be inadequate to facts. It is by its very nature 

 condemned to choose without reasonable cause between 

 exclusive alternatives. 1 But mind ceases to be mind when 

 it seeks to rest amongst contradictions. To do so it must 

 give up its own nature, which is to organise its content 

 into a systematic unity. Absolute scepticism that is, 

 distrust of the intellect as such is not an attitude possible 

 for the intellect. It is itself contradictory. 2 



The intelligence is thus thrown back upon itself, or, 

 what is the same thing, it is thrown back upon the facts. 



1 Such, for instance, was the view of Sir William Hamilton and 

 Herbert Spencer ; and it lies at the root of positivism and other forms 

 of that incomplete scepticism which we call agnosticism. 



2 For it denies the possibility of all knowledge and at the same time 

 asserts the validity of its own knowledge and of its own criterion of it. 

 A genuinely absolute scepticism would neither assert nor deny anything ; 

 that is, it is not an attitude of thought at all. 



