62 SCEPTICISM. 



the history of philosophy teems, exempt from the 

 metaphysical fictions of modern science, from intan- 

 gible solids like the ether, from * vortex rings ' in 

 • frictionless fluids.' So too the geometrical ignor- 

 ance of the savage left him blissfully untroubled by 

 the possibilities of pseudo-spherical, or four-dimens- 

 ional Space ; his simple theory of causation had not 

 yet evolved an insoluble contradiction between free 

 will and necessity. Happy too were the ages of 

 scientific faith in anthropomorphic metaphor, when 

 a mystic marriage of male and female elements could 

 be witnessed in every chemical combination, and 

 when terms like arsenic ^ and chemical affinity,^ as 

 yet conveyed a meaning that explained their nature. 



But we are burdened by the heritage of ancient 

 thought and ancient fancy, while we have to our 

 loss exchanged their vividness for modern excre- 

 scences, quite as false and far more obscure. And 

 our categories are not able to fit the facts, even when 

 they have been whittled away into nonsense ; not 

 even then do they succeed in being true. 



§ 5. For not one of the principal conceptions of 

 our science is true, not one is able to grasp the 

 " Becoming " of things as it really is. All are what 

 we call "approximations," which leave an unex- 

 plained surd in everything they are supposed to 

 explain ; and not only are they false, but we know 

 that they are false, however we may choose to 

 ignore it. We believe in our first principles, though 

 we know that they involve fictions ; we believe in 

 them because these fictions are so transparent as no 

 longer to excite surprise. Is it then too much to 

 say that the Credo quia absurdum is the basis of 



1 Arsenic = the male element. 



2 Affinity = relationship by marriage. 



