THE LATEST STAGE 275 



tion from philosophic bonds, and the establishment 

 of its right to sovereign jurisdiction within a kingdom 

 acknowledged as its own. Now, when we return to 

 the subject, we find, in a sense, the positions reversed. 

 Science stands on its own ground, alone, secure ; 

 philosophy has to frame its systems in conformity 

 with natural knowledge. 



What, then, is the bearing of our present scientific 

 position, and of the tendencies we have traced in 

 recent scientific theories, on philosophic thought in 

 its most broad and general outlines, with which alone 

 we can deal. 



And first let us consider, from this point of view, the 

 empirical or phenomenal theory of science described 

 in the last few pages. What is its metaphysical 

 import ? Does it impel us to philosophic agnosticism ? 

 Must we conclude that, if no scientific knowledge is 

 possible of any reality behind phenomena, no know- 

 ledge of any kind is there attainable ? 



In reply, many philosophers would insist on the facts 

 that it is possible for us to construct a conceptual 

 model of nature consistent with itself, and consistent 

 to such an amazing extent with our sense-perceptions, 

 and hold that these facts are valid metaphysical 

 arguments that some reality exists outside our minds, 

 which conforms in some essential way to the picture 

 we frame of it. True that matter must be very 

 different from all our ideas of it, true the physical 

 nature, of energy is incomprehensible, still matter and 

 energy are probably somethings between which exist 

 real relations corresponding to the relations postulated 

 by our scheme of physics, and confirmed in the world 

 of sense-perceptions. Thus the relations at all events 



