COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



ledge an achievement worthy to crown the efforts 

 of twenty-five centuries ? Shall it take two or 

 three generations of weary experimenting to 

 bring into existence some incarnation of mate- 

 rial force like the steam-engine, and may it not 

 take a hundred generations for the human mind 

 to ascertain for itself experimentally what it can 

 know and what it cannot know ? 



To the second accusation we may return a 

 straightforward denial. In asserting the impos- 

 sibility of acquiring absolute knowledge, or of 

 ascertaining aught respecting the nature of mind 

 and matter and the origin of the universe, we 

 do not dethrone Philosophy ; we do not con- 

 demn it as antiquated and useless ; we do not 

 leave it nothing with which to occupy itself. On 

 the contrary, we do but enthrone it more se- 

 curely than ever ; and we leave it in possession 

 of quite as goodly a realm as that in which our 

 metaphysical predecessors would fain have es- 

 tablished it. 



In order to show how this can be true, it will be 

 necessary for me to define, somewhat at length, 

 the Scope of Philosophy, — to indicate the na- 

 ture of the inquiries with which philosophy may 

 profitably be concerned. And since philosophy 

 may be correctly though rudely defined as a 

 kind of knowledge, it will first be desirable to 

 indicate the essential distinctions between the 

 different orders of knowledge, — to show in 



38 



