Febeuaey 21, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



269 



tion of cognitions and the relations of cogni- 

 tions. It is thus that the universe is re- 

 solved into material elements and judg- 

 ments, the five things best known, and 

 science in dealing with the universe ex- 

 plains them by resolving them into these best 

 known things. Science does not lead to 

 mystery, but to knowledge, and the mind 

 rests satisfied with the knowledge thus 

 gained when the analysis is complete — 

 when any newly discovered body is resolved 

 into its constituents or any new idea into 

 its judgments. 



Concepts of number, extension, motion, 

 duration and judgment are developed by 

 aU minds; from that of the lowest animal 

 to that of the highest human genius. 

 Through the evolution of animal life, these 

 concepts have been growing as they have 

 been inherited down the stream of time 

 in the flood of generations. It is thus 

 that an experience has been developed, 

 combined with the experience of all 

 the generations of life for all the time 

 of life, so that it is impossible to ex- 

 punge from human mind these five con- 

 cepts. They can never be cancelled while 

 sanity remains. Things having something 

 more than number, extension, motion, dura- 

 tion and judgment cannot even be invented; 

 it is not possible for the human mind to 

 conceive anything else, but semblances of 

 such ideas may be produced by mummifica- 

 tion of language. 



Ideas are expressed in words which are 

 symbols, and the word may be divested of all 

 meaning in terms of number, extension, 

 motion, duration and judgment and still re- 

 main, and it may be claimed that it still 

 means something unknown and unknow- 

 able ; this is the origin of reification. There 

 are many things unknown at one stage of 

 experience which are known at another, 

 so man comes to believe in the unknown by 

 constant daily experience; but has by fur- 

 ther converse with the universe known 



things previously unknown, and they invar i 

 ably become known in terms of number, ex- 

 tension, motion, duration and judgment, and 

 are found to be only combinations of these 

 things. It is thus that something unknown 

 may be imagined, but something unknow- 

 able cannot be imagined. 



No man imagines reified substrate, reified 

 essence, reified space, reified force, reified 

 time, reified ghost, or reified cause. Words 

 are blank checks on the bank of thought, to 

 be filled with meaning by the past and future 

 earnings of the intellect. But these words 

 are coin signs of the unknowable and no one 

 can acquire the currency for which they call. 



Things little known are named and man 

 speculates about these little known things 

 and erroneously imputes properties or attri- 

 butes to them until he comes to think of 

 their possessing such unknown and mis- 

 taken attributes. At last he discovers the 

 facts ; then all that he discovers is ex- 

 pressed in the terms of number, extension 

 motion, duration and cognition. Still the 

 word for the little known thing may remain 

 to express something unknown and mysti- 

 cal, and by simple and easily understood 

 processes he reifies what is not, and reasons 

 in terms which have no meaning as used by 

 him. Terms thus used without meaning 

 are terms of reification. 



Such terms and such methods of reason- 

 ing become very dear to those immersed in 

 thaumaturgy and who love the wonderful 

 and cling to the mysterious, and, in the rev- 

 elry developed by the hashish of mystery, 

 the pure water of truth is insipid. The 

 dream of intellectual intoxication seems 

 more real and more worthy of the human 

 mind than the simple truths discovered by 

 science. There is a fascination in mystery 

 and there has ever been a school of intel- 

 lects delighting to revel therein, and yet, in 

 the grand aggregate, there is a spirit of 

 sanity extant among mankind which loves 

 the true and simple. 



