dh. iv.] PHENOMENON AND NOUMENOK. 93 



ultimate datum of consciousness which transcend? proof. 

 Thus our philosophy can be identified neither with that of 

 Kant nor with that of Locke. Again, it differs from the 

 philosophy of Hamilton, both in other points not needful 

 to be mentioned, and in this, that it does not regard the 

 assertion of the doctrine of relativity as compatible with 

 the assertion that we can know the primary qualities of 

 matter otherwise than as modifications of our consciousness. 

 But, while refusing to assist in this violation of the doctrine 

 of relativity committed by the philosophy of Eeid and 

 Hamilton, it refuses also to join in the very different viola- 

 tion of the doctrine which is committed by the philosophy 

 of Berkeley and Hume. For while it admits, to the fullest 

 extent, the position that we can never know the Absolute 

 Existence of which phenomena are the manifestations, it at 

 the same time asserts that the doctrine of relativity cannot 

 even be intelligibly expressed unless Absolute Existence is 

 affirmed. 



In this last assertion our philosophy declares itself anta- 

 gonistic to Positivism. For the Positive Philosophy, refusing 

 to deal with anything beyond the immediate content of 

 observed facts, utterly ignores the Absolute Existence which 

 is manifested in the world of phenomena, neither affirming 

 nor denying it. I shall point out hereafter the complicated 

 embarrassment in which this indifferent attitude has left the 

 Positive Philosophy. It must suffice now to insist upon the 

 fact that any philosophy which, like the system here ex- 

 pounded, affirms Absolute Existence is by such affirmation 

 fundamentally distinguished from Positivism. Because our 

 philosophy, like Positivism, rejects all ontological specula- 

 tion ; and because, like Positivism, it seeks to found itself 

 upon scientific doctrines and employ none but scientific 

 methods ; and because, moreover, it is arrayed, like Posi- 

 tivism, in opposition to sundry popular metaphysical and 

 theological doctrines ; it is customary to confound our philo- 



