COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



wickedness, and erected thereupon an argument 

 in support of the doctrine that the unbaptized 

 child is in danger of damnation ? 



These wilder extravagances of the subjective 

 method may serve to illustrate for us the close 

 kinship between metaphysics and mythology, 

 and to justify the pregnant observation of Mr. 

 Chauncey Wright, that the method of the a 

 priori philosopher is but an evanescent form of 

 the method employed by the barbarian in con- 

 structing his quaint theories of the universe. 

 When deeply considered, the subjective method, 

 whether employed by the metaphysician or by 

 the myth-maker, will be seen to consist in fol- 

 lowing the lead of a train of associated ideas, 

 without pausing to test the validity of the asso- 

 ciation by interpreting the ideas in terms of sen- 

 sible experiences, — or, in other words, without 

 confronting the order of conceptions with the 

 observed or observable order of phenomena. 

 As I have elsewhere observed, " it is through 

 the operation of certain laws of ideal association 

 that all human thinking, that of the highest as 

 well as that of the lowest minds, is conducted ; 

 the discovery of the law of gravitation, as well 

 as the invention of such a superstition as the 

 Hand of Glory, is at bottom but a case of as- 

 sociation of ideas. The difference between the 

 scientific and the mythologic inference consists 

 solely in the number of checks which in the 

 154 



