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best. On the contrary, there is a large, though de- 

 creasing, class of men who admire intricacy and even 

 confusion of thought, while they think meanly of 

 syntaxis which is merely simple and direct ; hence 

 they either contemn science altogether, as did our 

 ancestors in the Middle Ages, or else they adapt it 

 to their taste by substituting fanciful obscurities in 

 place of those clear syntaxes by which alone science 

 is differentiated from quackery. Among men of this 

 type the prevailing idea seems to be that a syntax 

 involving the unintelligible is a mystery, or a special 

 kind of knowledge, higher than any which can be 

 attained by the understanding ; an idea which may 

 or may not be well founded, but which is in any 

 case beyond the reach of argument ; for this at the 

 best can only demonstrate that, of the syntaxes 

 under consideration, one is clearer and more direct 

 than another ; if the clearest syntax be then 

 deliberately rejected, argument fails. 



I will now recapitulate the main points of the 

 three sections. Looking first to the history of Philo- 

 sophy : many of the early Greeks appreciated the 

 importance of the proposition that scientific truths 

 must necessarily be clear and intelligible, but were 

 misled by the fallacy that the evidence of the senses 

 is in itself untrustworthy. Aristotle, and perhaps one 

 or two others, held the opinion that the senses are 

 the principal sources of knowledge, but they did 

 not found any consistent system of philosophy upon 



