INTRODUCTORY 25 



matters, a tabula rasa; but ignorance and prejudice and education 

 all conspire to predispose us to some form of a priori philosophy, 

 and most men who have not given hard thought to the subject 

 hold fast, consciously or unconsciously, to belief in the universal 

 and necessary conservation of energy, to belief in a necessary law 

 of universal progress or evolution, to belief in the arbitrary and 

 absolute freedom of the will, or to belief in some other a priori 

 notion which they hold necessary and ultimate, or arbitrary and 

 absolute. 



"The maxim that metaphysical inquiries are barren of result," 

 says Huxley, "and that the serious occupation of the mind with 

 them is a mere waste of time and labor, finds much favor in the 

 eyes of many persons who pride themselves on the possession of 

 sound common sense ; and we sometimes hear it enunciated by 

 weighty authorities, as if its natural consequence, the suppression 

 of such studies, had the force of a moral obligation." 



" In this case, however, as in so many others, those who lay 

 down the law seem to forget that a wise legislator will consider, 

 not merely whether his proposed enactment is desirable, but whether 

 obedience to it is possible. For if the latter question be answered 

 negatively, the former is surely hardly worth debate." 



" Here, in fact, lies the pith of the reply to those who would 

 make metaphysics contraband of intellect. Whether it is desirable to 

 place a prohibitory duty upon philosophical speculations or not, it is 

 utterly impossible to prevent the importation of them into the mind. 

 And it is not a little curious to observe that those who most loudly 

 profess to abstain from such commodities are, all the while, uncon- 

 scious consumers, on a great scale, of one or another of their mul- 

 titudinous disguises or adulterations. With mouths full of the 

 particular kind of heavily buttered toast which they affect, they 

 inveigh against the eating of plain bread. In truth, the attempt to 

 nourish the human intellect upon a diet which contains no meta- 

 physics is about as hopeful as that of certain Eastern sages to 

 nourish their bodies without destroying life." 



" Everybody has heard the story of the pitiless microscopist, who 

 ruined the peace of mind of one of these mild enthusiasts by show- 

 ing him the animals moving in a drop of the water with which, in 

 the innocency of his heart, he slaked his thirst ; and the unsuspect- 



