A I5ARGATN WITH SCEPT1CIS^^. 1 35 



common-sense reflection leads to irremediable dis- 

 aster. And the toil and trouble of probing to its 

 utmost depths the abyss of Pessimism will not have 

 been in vain, if it can bring home to us this con- 

 viction, that either a metaphysical method can 

 rescue philosophy or all is lost, that salvation is to 

 be found in metaphysics or not at all. 



j5 2. But in addition to these, other advantages 

 may indirectly result from an attentive criticism of 

 what has been proved by Scepticism and Pessimism, 

 and of how it has been proved. 



The demonstration of Scepticism depended on 

 the discrepancy between thought and reality, be- 

 tween things as we think them, and as they appear 

 to us, on the difference of thought and feeling, on 

 the impossibility of representing the whole by the 

 part. And as It denied the correspondence of the 

 elements which constitute knowledge, it cannot be 

 directly refuted. For any argument which assumes 

 such correspondence begs the question, while any 

 argument which proceeds by only one of the factors, 

 is ex hy pot he si Incapable of proving the existence of 

 truth, i.e. of the harmony of both. 



Any refutation, therefore, of Scepticism must be 

 indirect ; and of such refutations, that which Is 

 based on its practical absurdity has been already 

 considered. It Is transcended by Pessimism, which 

 admits that the assumptions of our knowledge work, 

 In a certain sense, but only up to a certain point, 

 and work only In order to plunge us into a more 

 irredeemable chaos. For in the end they fail, and 

 fail us just at the critical point : they imply intel- 

 lectual ideals to which the Becoming of sensible 

 things will not conform. 



Nothing remains, therefore, but to make a kind of 



