104 COXMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. i. 



purely subjective system of the Platonic Timrios. Never- 

 theless, that even modern science, in all the plenitude of its 

 power, is unable to rein in the obstinately metaphysical mind, 

 may be seen in the following morsel from Hegel, of all 

 modern thinkers the most consistent in his adherence to the 

 subjective, and in his scorn of the objective, method. " The 

 substance or essence of matter," says Hegel, "is Gravity ; that 

 of spirit is Freedom. But matter is only heavy inasmuch 

 as it tends to a centre. It is composite ; its very existence 

 is external to itself — sic bestcht ausser einander. Thus the 

 essence of matter consists in the search for a unity which 

 would be its destruction." Speculations of this sort would 

 not carry us very far toward the construction of a science of 

 mechanics. Yet they are quite in keeping with the funda- 

 mental tenet "that Nature being only the result of the idea 

 of a Creative Intelligence from which we ourselves emanate, 

 we may, without the assistance of experience, and by our 

 pure intellectual activity, find the Creator's ideas." 



Compare also these explanations which the subjective 

 method gives of the crying of newly-born infants. Physiology 

 explains this crying as the result of the novel impression of 

 the cool atmosphere upon the surface of the infant's body, 

 and of the sudden inrush of air into the lungs, which com- 

 bine to excite the reflex action of screaming. If there is 

 anything distinctly psychical about it — which is in the 

 highest degree improbable — it could be merely a sub-conscious 

 sense of discomfort. But according to Hegel, the cry of the 

 child just born indicates " a revelation of his exalted nature." 

 "His ideas being excited into activity, (!) the child feels 

 himself straightway penetrated with the certitude that he 

 has a right to exact from the external world the satisfaction 

 of his needs, — that the external world compared, to the soul 

 amounts to nothing." According, however, to Hegel's follower, 

 Michelet, the cry of the new-born child reveals "the horror 

 felt bv the soul at being enslaved to nature ; " or according tc 



