THE TEST OF TRUTH 



imagine a lump of iron floating in water, and 

 you will find that you cannot do it, without 

 mentally endowing either the iron or the water 

 with other attributes than those by virtue of 

 which these substances are what they are, and 

 thus your attempt destroys itself. Yet no Kan- 

 tian would deny that your conception of iron or 

 of water is wholly formed by experience. Your 

 conception is just what experience has made it, 

 and you cannot alter it without destroying it, 

 simply because you cannot transcend experience. 

 Here then we come to a conclusion quite the 

 reverse of that maintained by the Kantians. 

 " The irresistible tendency we have to antici- 

 pate that the future course of events will resem- 

 ble the past is simply that we have experience 

 only of the past, and as we cannot transcend our 

 experience, we cannot conceive things really ex- 

 isting otherwise than as we have known them. 

 The very fact of our being compelled to judge 

 of the unknown by the known — of our irresist- 

 ibly anticipating that the future course of events 

 will resemble the past — of our incapacity to 

 believe that the same effects should not follow 

 from the same causes — this very fact is a tri- 

 umphant proof of our having no ideas not ac- 

 quired through experience. If we had a priori 

 ideas, these, as independent of, and superior to, 

 all experience, would • enable us to judge the 

 unknown according to some other standard than 



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