en. iv.] PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON. 95 



study of the universe or Cosmos ; and ir accordance with 

 this definition, we may '.tly designate our philosophy as 

 Cosmic Philosophy. We shall hereafter discover in this 

 epithet sundry points of fitness not yet indicated. But for 

 the present Ave may go on to use the phrase whenever re- 

 quired, entrusting our complete justification to the inquiries 

 which are to follow. 



In conclusion, let me say a few words in reply to the 

 objection, sometimes urged from metaphysical quarters, that 

 such a philosophy as this Cosmic Philosophy, here sketched 

 out, is not adequate to supply our highest intellectual 

 needs. At the bottom of this objection, as at the bottom 

 of that persistent clinging to ontological speculations (in 

 spite of their often-demonstrated worthlessness) which we 

 frequently meet with, there lies the vague half-defined belief 

 that in giving up our knowledge of noumena or the Nou- 

 menon, we are leaving for ourselves nothing but shadows. 

 " We increase the seeming unreality of that phenomenal 

 existence which we can alone know, by contrasting it with a 

 noumenal existence which we imagine would, if we could 

 know it, be more truly real to us." But we are led astray by 

 the unavoidable ambiguity of words. To make a supposition 

 which savours somewhat strongly of hibernicism :— even if we 

 could know objects apart from the conditions imposed upon 

 them in the act of knowing, such (so-called) knowledge 

 would be utterly useless. This is admirably illustrated in a 

 passage from Mr. SpeDcer's " First Principles " with which I 

 will conclude this chapter : — 



" The .uaintenanoe of a correspondence between internal 

 actions and external actions, which both constitutes our life 

 at each moment and is the means whereby life is continued 

 through subsequent moments, merely requires that the agencies 

 acting upon us shall be known in their coexistences and 

 sequences, and not that they shall be known in themselves. 



