COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



topics, which being placed immediately after the 

 other in his collected works, received the title 

 of ra fxera tol <^L»cri/ca, or '"' Things-which-come- 

 after-the-Physics." It was in this way that the 

 term came into use ; and it needs but little 

 playing with the elastic significance of the pre- 

 position, to arrive at a thoroughly just idea of 

 the meaning of the expression. Metaphysics, 

 thus considered, means a set of inquiries which 

 lie beyond the bounds of Physics. Physics, 

 in the widest sense of the word, dealing solely 

 with phenomena in their relations of coexistence 

 and succession, metaphysics deals with some- 

 thing lying beyond the phenomena. A phy- 

 sical explanation is content with analyzing 

 phenomena as it finds them ; a metaphysical 

 explanation is not content until it has added 

 something not given in the phenomena. Meta- 

 physics, therefore, is not confined to psycho- 

 logy, but may deal with any subject, and has in 

 fact obtruded its explanations upon most sub- 

 jects. When mercury was seen to rise in a 

 tube, in apparent contradiction to the general 

 phenomena of gravity, metaphysics said that 

 it was because " Nature abhorred a vacuum.'* 

 Physics, without going beyond the facts given 

 in the case, explained it by a reference to the 

 pressure of the atmosphere upon the mercury 

 without the tube. So the phenomena of causa- 

 tion were metaphysically explained by the sup- 

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