BS. r.j THE TWO METHODS. 125 



ordinary knowledge that none of these routes should lead to 

 it. The highest truths of science (!) cannot be proved, they 

 must be apprehended ; for those who cannot apprehend them 

 there is nothing but pity ; argument is useless.'" 1 Here in 

 the explicit rejection of the fundamental conception of 

 Cosmic Philosophy as a further organization of science, 

 which is itself a further organization of common knowledge, 

 we see at the same time the most explicit adoption of the 

 subjective method. And it is worthy of note that, in this 

 emphatic declaration, modern metaphysics ends in precisely 

 the fame red.untio ad absurdum in which ancient metaphysics 

 met its doom. The incompetence of ordinary reason to 

 construct a science of ontology having been fully demon- 

 strated, the task is transferred, by Schelling as by Proklos, 

 to a " divine light," which is supposed to irradiate the souls 

 of a few privileged teachers. Obviously this is equivalent 

 to the confession that, as a process of rational investigation, 

 the subjective method has been definitely tried in the balance 

 and found wanting. For to recur to a " divine light," or to 

 seek refuge in the identity of contradictories, is only to show 

 the more convincingly that human thought cannot, save by 

 a mere jugglery of words, even appear to escape from the 

 conditions under which alone is valid thinking possible. 



We have now sufficiently illustrated, by concrete examples, 

 the difference between the subjective and objective methods, 

 which is the practical difference between metaphysics and 

 science. We are accordingly in a position to consider, some- 

 what more closely than we have hitherto done, the essential 

 point of difference between the scientific mode of philo- 

 sophizing which we accept and the metaphysical mode of 

 philosophizing which we reject. It is well that, in our polemic 

 against metaphysics, there should be no room left for am- 

 biguity or misconception. It has already been sufficiently 

 explained that in doing away with metaphysics we do not set 

 * Lewes, History of Philosophy, 3rd edit. vol. ii. p. 522. 



