THE SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY 



It was only after all possible devices of attack 

 had proved fruitless, that we could realize the 

 truth that we had been assailing an inexpug- 

 nable fortress. Had we not been taught by 

 many a bitter defeat, we should never have 

 learned the real extent of our powers. Had not 

 metaphysics reared many an apparently solid 

 edifice, which fell into unshapely ruin at the 

 first rude blast of criticism, psychology might 

 never have troubled itself to examine the soil 

 upon which all such edifices must be founded. 

 Nay, it may be truly said, that though philoso- 

 phers have failed in what they have consciously 

 attempted, they have nevertheless unwittingly 

 achieved a result greater than any of those which 

 they have sought to obtain. By their long career 

 of heroic defeat, they have furnished us with a 

 concrete demonstration, almost superfluously 

 ample, of the relativity of human knowledge. 

 By exhausting all possible hypotheses respect- 

 ing the objective reality, they have made it ap- 

 parent that no tenable hypothesis can be framed. 

 In the very failure to obtain one kind of truth, 

 they have demonstrated for us a truth of an- 

 other sort, — a truth which must for the future 

 lie at the bottom of all successful research. Is 

 not this then a worthy result ? Remembering 

 how steep and laborious is the path of human 

 progress, is not the definite establishment of one 

 fundamental truth like the Relativity of Know- 

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