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CHAPTER V. 



OF REALITY. 

 I. 



History of philosophy shows us several instances when j. . ^^-j^. 

 the philosophical mind started on new beginnings, initi- °y°f^i^sof 

 ating a new phase of thought, by attempting a fresh p^'^°^°p y- 

 solution of the problem of knowledge. The statement 

 that before taking up the important problems of philo- 

 sophic thought it is necessary to settle the method and 

 define the way by which we may hope to attain to their 

 solution, has been repeatedly put forward both in ancient 

 and modern times. Thus we find that in many in- 

 stances philosophical systems have been introduced by 

 preliminary discussions, of which the Organon of Aris- 

 totle, the Novum Organum of Bacon, the Discourse on 

 method of Descartes, the Critique of Kant, and, to some 

 extent, the First Principles of Herbert Spencer, furnish 

 well-known examples.^ Their object was to define the 



^ It must, however, be noted that 

 the search after first principles of 

 Thought has, in modern times, ac- 

 quired a different aspect from that 

 which it possessed in Antiquity or 

 the Middle Ages ; and this is owing 

 to the fact that the pioneers in 

 modern philosophy, both Bacon and 



Descartes, could refer to or build 

 upon a certain amount of generally 

 admitted and accepted knowledge, 

 that of the mathematical and me- 

 chanical sciences which, as it were, 

 did not require any preliminary 

 discourse for their recommendation. 

 The epistemological investigations of 



