350 The riiilosnjilnj of Krohition. 



men to leave the pathless woods of metaphysics and myth- 

 ology I'or the cleaved land of science it of course deserves 

 the laudation of philosophers ; but it came far short of dis- 

 covering the fundamental postulates of evolution. It was 

 itself metaphysical and fragmentary. It was so little 

 familiar A\'ith the true method of i)liilosophizing that it at 

 last landed its believers in the paltry and time-wasting cult 

 of its founder's mistress, and in a Keligion of Humanity 

 which is good enough for an ideal but has no roots in the 

 nature of things. It elevates a sentiment to that throne of 

 authority which fact alone can satisfactorily fill. Posi- 

 tivism played an excellent part in its insistency that a 

 philosophy should deal with the universe itself rather than 

 Avith various notions about the universe. It deserves a 

 magnum cum laude for pointing out the unsatisfactory 

 service rendered by metaphysics. But it was only a door 

 to the method of nature, and not that method itself. 



Leaving now the other systems to their OAvn intrepid 

 adherents, let me say that the Evolutionary I'hilosophy 

 seems to me to be essentially materialistic. It is true that 

 its greatest apostles, Spencer and Huxley, and ]Mr. John 

 Fiske as Avell, allege that of the two Avorld-old dilemmas 

 between mind and matter, every analysis leads rather 

 to the conclusion that Ave know the universe far more as all 

 mind than Ave do as all matter. Tliey do indeed deny that 

 Ave can claim to knoAV its real nature at all, and so sustain 

 themselves in the airy spaces of agnosticism, declaring the 

 existence of ''an UnknoAvable Keality"- beyond our ken. 

 Mr. Spencer labors the point frequently, asserting that 

 consciousness and reason alike fail to carry us beyond a 

 knoAvledge of relations, Avhich never disclose the absolute 

 reality. The permanent substratum of mental being, AAdiich 

 abides behind all the changes of thought, and the permanent 

 substance in Avhich all the qualities of matter inhere, must 

 forever remain hid from us. But if we Avere to decide any- 

 thing as to the nature of the ultimate substance, he says Ave 

 sho\dd decide it to be mental rather than material, for con- . 

 sciousness itself is nearer to mind than it is to matter, so 

 far at least as Ave see it internally. All our knowledge is 

 declared to be given in units of feeling at last, and these 

 units of feeling are mental. We seem thus to be croAvded 

 back to the old metaphysical basis for all philosophizing- — 

 the primitive testimony of consciousness. While one may 



