126 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [it. l 



aside philosophy, but place it on a firmer foundation than 

 before. And while it is thus apparent that we have not 

 identified metaphysics with philosophy, it is also evident that 

 we have by no means fallen into the vulgar error of identi- 

 fying it with psychology, or the inquiry into the phenomena 

 of consciousness, which is as much a science as chemistry or 

 physiology. How, then, shall we precisely define the meta- 

 physics against which we have, during these five chapters 

 and from various points of attack, been waging war? 



To arrive at the true meaning of " Metaphysics," we can 

 hardly do better than go back to the historical origin of the 

 word. Aristotle wrote a treatise on Physics, and also an 

 elaborate dissertation upon sundry transcendental topics, which 

 being placed immediately after the other in his collected 

 works, received the title of ra /xera to. (pva-i/cd, or " Things- 

 which-come-after-the-Physics." It was in this way that the 

 term came into use ; and it needs but little playing with 

 the elastic significance of the preposition, to arrive at a 

 thoroughly just idea of the meaning of the expression. Meta- 

 physics, thus considered, means a set of inquiries which lie 

 beyond the bounds of Physics. Physics, — in the widest sense 

 of the word, — dealing solely with phenomena in their rela- 

 tions of coexistence and succession, metaphysics deals with 

 something lying beyond the phenomena A physical explana- 

 tion is content with analyzing phenomena as it finds them ; a 

 metaphysical explanation is not content until it has added 

 something not given in the phenomena. Metaphysics, there- 

 fore, is not confined to psychology, but may deal with any 

 subject, and has in fact obtruded its explanations upon most 

 subjects. When mercury was seen to rise in a tube, in appa- 

 rent contradiction to the general phenomena of gravity, meta- 

 physics said that it was because "Nature abhorred a vacuum." 

 Physics, without going beyond the facts given in the case, 

 explained it by a reference to the pressure of the atmosphere 

 upon the mercury without the tube. So the phenomena of 



