THE BECOMING OF THINGS UNKNOWABLE. 79 



which no category of ours can grasp. For all 

 reality is immersed in the flux of Becoming, which 

 glides before our eyes in a Protean stream of change, 

 interminable, indeterminate, indefinite, indescribable, 

 impenetrable, a boundless and groundless abyss into 

 which we cast the frail network of our categories fruit- 

 lessly and in vain. 



And this revelation of the flux of things sums up 

 the doom of science; surely, we must say, the god- 

 dess of wisdom could not be born of the froth and 

 spume of such fluctuating waves ; our search for 

 truth beneath the idle show of such appearances is 

 surely vain ; the sensuous veil that hides the truth 

 is all the picture. 



§ 14. Thus the principles of our science all break 

 down, because not one is capable of expressing the 

 Becoming of things. Our science has turned out a 

 patchwork raft, compiled out of the battered frag- 

 ments of ancient superstitions, that floats idly on a 

 sea of doubt, unable to attain to the terra fir^na of 

 certainty, and still more incapable of wafting the 

 ark of life to the distant islands of the Blest. 



But this fiasco of human science does not satisfy 

 the sceptic : he is prepared to explain how it comes 

 about. That the categories of our thought should 

 prove inadequate to the explanation of reality will 

 cease to surprise us, when we have considered the 

 complete difference of character which exists between 

 our thoughts on the one hand and the reality which 

 is given to feeling in perception on the other. 



For it is not true that perception and conception 

 are distinguished merely by the greater vividness of 

 the consciousness which accompanies the former : 

 their difference is an essential difference of character, 

 and as soon as it is realized puts an end to the 



