may clearly show the relation between mechanical structure and 

 chemical quality. And in Hyslop's theory, sufficient observation and 

 experiment may reveal the nature of death, and the powers of spirits, 

 if such are found to exist. It is evident that such uninvestigated parts 

 may occur in a theory developed by either method of procedure. 

 However, our investigation has revealed that by far the most unin- 

 telligibilities of this kind occurred in the theories of Locke and Hyslop, 

 both of which are based upon the method of assumption and deduction. 

 A further examination of those theories may reveal the reason for this. 

 Both theories assume the existence out of experience of something, like 

 nothing in experience. This necessitates additional assumptions as to 

 all the qualities of the thing assumed to exist out of experience. Being 

 like nothing in experience, we cannot comprehend its nature, nor how 

 it exercises the powers ascribed to it. Hence the great unintelligibility 

 of these theories. We cannot comprehend the nature of the spirit con- 

 ceived of in Hyslop's theory. Spirits communicate but have no means 

 of communication of which we have knowledge. They move rapidly 

 but have no means of locomotion like any with which we are familiar. 

 Thus each of the powers ascribed to them is unintelligible to us. 



So in Locke's theory, the mind is out of experience and is like 

 nothing in experience. We cannot therefore comprehend its nature. 

 The mind is impressed in a different way from any we have knowledge 

 of. The idea resembles the object with a different kind of resem- 

 blance from any of which we have had experience. So the thinker in 

 dealing with Locke's theory meets with these many incomprehensible 

 elements and finds the theory in this sense complex. This evidently 

 is a necessary consequence of applying the method of assumption as 

 it is applied by Locke and Hyslop. Assumptions may be made of 

 the existence of things out of experience without incurring incompre- 

 hensible elements. In the theory of ions, it is assumed that the atom 

 is constituted of a spherical shell of positive electrification surround- 

 ing the negatively charged ions. Now a spherical surface of electrifi- 

 cation is a thing producible in experience; a thing which can be in- 

 vestigated and whose qualities we therefore know. The assumption 

 is not here, as in the theories of Locke and Hyslop, of a thing out of 

 experience like nothing in experience, and further assumptions as to its 

 qualities are not necessitated. When such an assumption is made, un- 

 intelligibilities do not arise; for the powers of the thing assumed are 

 known from experiment. Whereas, when the method of assumption 

 is applied as in the theories of Locke and Hyslop, and a thing is 

 assumed to exist like nothing in our experience, then we know nothing 

 of that thing or its qualities from experience, and must assume it to 

 have certain qualities, although we cannot understand its possession of 



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