COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



stages. After its revival in the Middle Ages, 

 philosophy again proceeded to treat of the same 

 kind of questions as those which had baffled the 

 keenest and most subtle intellects of antiquity. 

 In the eager scrutiny of the nature of things, 

 the scholastic metaphysicians thought little of 

 ascertaining the relations of coexistence and suc- 

 cession among phenomena. Their disputes were 

 about quiddities, entities, occult virtues, and 

 efficient causes. Nor in modern times do we 

 find that philosophy has been at all disposed to 

 recognize the limits which we have here found 

 ourselves obliged to impose upon it. On the 

 other hand, modern metaphysicians have gener- 

 ally proceeded upon the tacit assumption that 

 the possibilities of thought are coextensive with 

 the possibilities of things, and that any train of 

 propositions which can be clearly conceived and 

 logically conca,tenated, must be true. It was 

 upon this assumption that Malebranche founded 

 his theory of Occasional Causes, and Leibnitz 

 his doctrine of Pre-established Harmony. It 

 was upon this that Spinoza constructed a theory 

 of the universe, the most gigantic in conception, 

 and the most unflinchingly logical in execution, 

 of all metaphysical theories. Upon this also 

 rests the Kantian doctrine of Necessary Truths ;^ 



^ [It might be objected that Kant did not assume ** that 

 the possibilities of thought are coextensive with the possibili- 



34 



