DOES KNOWLEDGE WORK ? 91 



coalesce, and each must separately succumb to the 

 attack of Scepticism. 



§ 20. But all these demonstrations leave us cold. 

 It seems Idle to urge that judgment is impossible, 

 that inference is invalid, that the categories of our 

 thought cannot interpret the cipher of reality, in 

 face of the fact that, rightly or wrongly, the assump- 

 tions of our knowledge zuork. The theoretic falsity 

 of science shrinks back into the obscurest shade of 

 self- tormenting sophistry before the brilliant evidence 

 daily afforded us of its practical certainty. Our 

 mathematics may be grounded on falsity, and pro- 

 ceed by fiction, but yet they somehow manage to 

 predict the time of an eclipse within the tenth part 

 of a second. 



Such reflections have often rendered theoretic 

 scepticism practically harmless, and even some- 

 times enabled it to strike up a curious alliance with 

 theological orthodoxy. But they show, not that 

 Scepticism is harmless, but that in merely theoretical 

 scepticism it has not attained its fullest development. 

 It is baffled, not because It has been convicted of 

 error, but because the venue has been changed. 

 The knowledge which It attacks, shifts Its ground 

 and takes refuge in the strong citadel of practice, 

 and mere scepticism has not the siege artillery to 

 assault it. And this new position knowledge can 

 maintain only until Scepticism decides to press its 

 attack home. Knowledge is safe only while it is 

 not pursued, safe until the sceptic disputes his 

 adversary's appeal to the higher court of practice. 

 When he does, it soon appears that the '* practical 

 working " of our knowledge is far from conclusive 

 of the question at issue. If knowledge appeals to 

 practice, the sceptic may say, to practice it shall go. 



