38 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pp. i. 



the kind of effect which will follow a given cause ; it is 

 seldom, if ever, that we can foretell the precise amount of 

 effect ; and even with respect to the kind of effect, we cannot 

 always be sure beforehand. Biology is not an exact science, 

 like chemistry, and perhaps never will be. Nevertheless, 

 biology is such an admirably organized body of truths; its 

 classification, both of objects and of relations, has been 

 carried to such a considerable extent ; and the subordination, 

 the mutual coherence and congruity of its verified proposi- 

 tions is so striking ; that we should no more think of doubting 

 its claims to be called a science than we should doubt the 

 claims of astronomy. 



Thus we may end our comparison of scientific with unscien- 

 tific knowledge. Along with generic identity between the 

 two, we have noted five points of gradational difference. We 

 have seen that science and common knowledge alike consist 

 in the classification of phenomena in their relations of co- 

 existence and sequence. But we have also seen that science 

 differs from common knowledge in its superior power of 

 quantitative prevision, in the remoteness, the generality, and 

 the abstractness of the relations which it classifies, and in the 

 far more complete mutual subordination and coherence of its 

 groups of notions. Such are the distinctive marks of science, 

 regarded as a kind of knowledge. What now are the distinc- 

 tive marks of philosophy, regarded as a kind of knowledge ? 



The metaphysical philosophers, whose conclusions, methods, 

 and postulates were rejected in the preceding chapter, would 

 have replied to the above question, that philosophy is generi- 

 cally different from science, — that philosophy is the know- 

 ledge of the absolute, the infinite, the uncaused, the objective 

 reality, while science is the knowledge of the relative, the 

 finite, the caused, the subjective state, — that while the latter 

 can concern itself only with phenomena, or things as they 

 exist in relation to the percipient mind, the former can aspire 

 to the knowledge of noumena, or things as they exist inde- 



