96 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



appears that the experience which seems so rigor- 

 ously to exclude supersensible principles, and particu- 

 larly the personality of the First Principle, is itself 

 dependent for its existence on a personal Principle 

 and on supersensible principles ; that, in fact, these 

 enter into the very constitution of experience. But 

 in any case this question of the nature of experi- 

 ence and the limits of knowledge — the question 

 whether the limits of knowledge are identical with 

 the limits of experience — is a question which if we 

 take up, we abandon the field of natural science, and 

 enter instead the field of the theory of cognition. 

 In this, the expert at natural science, as such, has 

 not a word to say. Here his method is altogether 

 unavailing. If the problem can be solved at all, 

 the solution will be by methods that transcend the 

 bounds of empirical evidence. The scientific expert 

 may be competent to the solution in his capacity of 

 niati, but in his capacity of man of science he cer- 

 tainly is not. 



So again, with regard to the inferences to pan- 

 theism from the conservation of energy and the 

 principle of evolution. Strong as the evidence 

 seems, it arises in both cases from violating the 

 strict principles of the scientific method. All infer- 

 ences to a Whole of potential energy, or to a Whole 

 determinant of the survivals in a struggle for exist- 

 ence, are real inferences — cases of passing beyond 



