SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS 289 



Here, in fact, lies the pith of the reply to those 

 who would make metaphysics contraband of 

 intellect. Whether it is desirable to place a 

 prohibitory duty upon philosophical speculations 

 or not, it is utterly impossible to prevent the im- 

 portation of them into the mind. And it is not a 

 little curious to observe that those who most 

 loudly profess to abstain from such commodities 

 are, all the while, unconscious consumers, on a 

 great scale, of one or other of their multitudinous 

 disguises or adulterations. With mouths full of 

 the particular kind of heavily buttered toast 

 which they affect, they inveigh against the 

 eating of plain bread. In truth, the attempt to 

 nourish the human intellect upon a diet which 

 contains no metaphysics is about as hopeful as 

 that of certain Eastern sages to nourish their 

 bodies without destroying life. Everybody has 

 heard the story of the pitiless microscopist, who 

 ruined the peace of mind of one of these mild 

 enthusiasts by showing him the animals moving 

 in a drop of the water with which, in the 

 innocency of his heart, he slaked his thirst ; and 

 the unsuspecting devotee of plain common sense 

 may look for as unexpected a shock when the 

 magnifier of severe logic reveals the germs, if not 

 the full-grown shapes, of lively metaphysical 

 postulates rampant amidst his most positive and 

 matter-of-fact notions. 



By way of escape from the metaphysical Will-o'- 



VOL. VI U 



