COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



speculation was subordinated to psychological 

 inquiries. Thus arose the great English school, 

 whose especial function, with regard to meta- 

 physics, has been to demonstrate, on psycho- 

 logical grounds, the relativity of all knowledge. 

 This movement, begun by Hobbes and con- 

 tinued by Locke and Berkeley, though produc- 

 tive of many brilliant and permanent scientific 

 results, was suicidal so far as metaphysics is con- 

 cerned, for, as we saw in the preceding chap- 

 ter, it has ended in the Scepticism of Hume, 

 and the Positivism of Comte and Mill. The 

 researches of Hobbes on the laws of associa- 

 tion, the admirable though incomplete analysis 

 of mental operations achieved by Locke, and 

 Berkeley's explanation of the phenomena of 

 vision were genuine additions to our know- 

 ledge. But, as has frequently been pointed out, 

 they were obtained only through the employ- 

 ment of the objective method. The precepts 

 of Bacon, so thoroughly in harmony with the 

 cautious and practical temper of the English 

 mind, led these great thinkers to forsake the 

 high road o^ a priori ratiocination for the surer 

 though more tortuous path of patient observa- 

 tion ; and so long as they adhered to psycho- 

 logy, they were really scientific inquirers, as much 

 as if they had been physiologists or chemists. 

 This departure from metaphysics was carried 

 still farther by Hartley, who, working the deep- 

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