300 ON LIFE AND OKGANISATION. 



the separate parts of which they are investigating ; the fragments of 

 knowledge acquired by each, however discordant they may appear, 

 are yet, in fact, only apparently so. 



These fragmentary acquisitions are all necessarily related to the 

 common centre of the whole. As, therefore, they increase, or when 

 the serieses of which they form parts extend, they must do so 

 towards the centre. In the process of convergence they must 

 necessarily, according to their proximity to one another, sooner or 

 later coalesce, in which act their former apparent discrepancy 

 vanishes, and their results assume their real appearance as parts of 

 the common whole. 



Note II.— p. 286. 



" ORIGINALLY INDEPENDENT." 



The independent origin of the different departments of acquired 

 knowledge is a consequence of the finite conditions of human 

 thought. Thet>e finite conditions, necessarily excluding from a 

 central point of view, and compelling the inquirer to examine any 

 subject from one aspect only at a given time, can permit a know- 

 ledge of that subject which, although true, is only partial. He may, 

 for instance, acquire a knowledge of a given subject from the chemical 

 point of view, from the electrical, and from the mechanical. But 

 these three kinds of knowledge regarding it are in a great degree 

 independent, and must continue to be so, until chemistry, electricity, 

 and mechanics shall have coalesced more completely than they have 

 yet done, and thus permit a view not from a mere chemical, elec- 

 trical, or mechanical, but from a new and more central position. 



Note III— p. 286. 



" THEIR PERMITTED POSITIONS." 



Absolute knowledge must have a centre, from which and to 

 which, all its parts must be necessarily deducible and referable. If 

 human intelligence could push its inquiries forward to that common 

 centre, the result would be knowledge of the Infinite. The con- 

 sciousness of the impossibility of approaching that centre by the 

 ordinary exercise of the human faculties has induced the various 



