10 The Scope and Frinciples 



knowledge,] but as a disfipline for its delimitation, and 

 instead of discovering truth, lias only the modest merit of 

 preventing error." In other words, the only practical re- 

 sult of metaphysical studies is to convince the unbiased 

 student that the human mind is incapable of grasping 

 ontological facts. In the clearer language of Mr. Spencer, 

 '' all our knowledge is relative." We can know nothing of 

 the external universe— nothing even of the nature of our 

 own bodies and of our own minds — save as they are 

 directly related to our knowing faculties. Involved in this 

 phenomenal knowledge, however, and accompanying it at 

 every step, we have the inexpugnable testimony of our 

 reason and consciousness that behind the world of phe- 

 nomena there exists an Iniiuite and Eternal Energy which 

 is the source and efl&cient cause of all phenomena, both 

 physical and mental. As thus stated, the doctrine seems 

 almost a truism. How, indeed, can it be possible that man 

 should know anything which is wholly out of relation to 

 his intellectual faculties ? Nay, of what use or interest to 

 him would such knowledge be if it were possible to attain 

 it.^ And on the other liand, how is it possible f or _ him 

 to view the orderly procession of phenomena — any single 

 phenomenon, indeed — without conceiving it as a manifes- 

 tation of immanent causal energy ? A sense of depend- 

 ence upon a Power which is greater than our human 

 capacity of comprehension — an apprehension of our own 

 finitude and of that of the phenomenal universe, in the 

 presence of this Power— is indeed as necessary to supply 

 the demands of our intellectual as of our emotional and 

 religi(jus nature. If we think at all, we cannot escape 

 from the implication involved in this belief. It rebukes 

 our intellectual conceits, and touches with an infinite awe 

 and reverence every discovered beauty, every hidden mys- 

 tery, the existence of which is forced upon us by the con- 

 templation of the world nf pliciioiiicna. In the very fact 

 that the dei)ths of this mystery can never be sounded by 

 the finite plummets of our thought, lies its capacity to for- 

 ever satisfy the artistic, the poetic, the religious demands 

 of our nature. '<Who by searching can find out God? 

 Who can know the Almighty to ])erfection ? " Greater 

 than any object of our detinit(^ knowledge is the human 

 mind itself. The noblest product of evolution, it bows be- 

 fore no mere conception of tlic phenomenal universe, even 



