CHAPTER II. 



THE SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY. 



In setting forth, and illustrating the conclusion that we can 

 only know that which is caused, which is finite, and which is 

 relative, we have virtually rejected as impracticable and use- 

 less a large number of the inquiries with which philosophy 

 has habitually concerned itself. Both by practical examples, 

 and by a series of mutually-harmonious deductions from the 

 mode in which our intelligence works, as revealed to us by 

 psychologic analysis, it has been shown that we are for ever 

 debarred from any knowledge of the Absolute, the Infinite, or 

 the Uncaused; that we can affirm nothing whatever concern- 

 ing the ultimate nature of Matter or Mind ; and that all our 

 knowledge consists in the classification of states of conscious- 

 ness produced in us by unknown external agencies. Never- 

 theless from the earliest times, philosophy has busied itself 

 in attempts to reach tenable conclusions respecting the nature 

 and attributes of the absolute and infinite First Cause ; it has 

 ever tacitly assumed that the ultimate nature of Matter as 

 well as of Mind constitutes a legitimate subject of investiga- 

 tion ; and that from the knowledge formed by the organized 

 experience of recurring states of consciousness, we can in 

 tome mysterious way rise to a so-called higher grade of 

 Knowledge, in which realities no less than phenomena may 



