THE METAPHYSICS OF SCIENCE. 385 



narrow sphere which science sometimes mistakenly allots 

 to itself. Many of them are the logical antecedents and 

 necessary conditions of the possibility of experience. They 

 precede and legitimate all our cognitions and judgments 

 concerning the sensible world, and act as the constitutive 

 and coordinating principles among our perceptions. They 

 render possible the logical contemplation and intelligent 

 penetration of nature. They constitute the bond of consist- 

 ence and coherence in the fabric of science, and illume the 

 system of the cosmos with the supernal light of thought. 



The foregoing suggestions are intended to reveal clearly 

 to the intelligent reader the existence of a realm of legiti- 

 mate thought deeper than the data of physical science; 

 presupposed, indeed, by all the logic of science, and sole 

 sponsor for all the validity which the principles of science 

 can ever acquire. The effect is not to impair the authority 

 of science, but to rationalize it, and purge it of empiricism 

 and dogmatism. The moral is that science, from its plat- 

 form, is not competent to utter conclusions on themes 

 which lie over in the realm of metaphysics ; but when 

 it gives utterances, either affirmative or negative, on ques- 

 tions essentially metaphenomenal, it must proceed from 

 the axioms of metaphysics, and not from the inductions 

 based on sensible phenomena. 



