94 Chauncey Wright. [vi. 



objective validity, and quite independent of expe- 

 rience. To do this would undoubtedly be to desert 

 science for metaphysics ; but Mr. Spencer has not 

 done anything of the kind. As I said before, there 

 has probably been an excess of controversy on this 

 point. For my own part, without retreating from 

 any position formerly taken,' I should be willing, 

 for all practical purposes, to waive the question alto- 

 gether. Whether our belief in the uniformity of 

 Nature be a primary datum for rational thinking, or 

 a net result of all induction, or whether, with the 

 authors of the Unseen Universe, we prefer to call it 

 an expression of trust that the Deity " will not put 

 us to permanent intellectual confusion," — whichever 

 alternative we adopt, our theories of the universe 

 will be pretty much the same in the end, provided we 

 content ourselves with a simple scientific coordination 

 of the phenomena before us. And this is all that has 

 been aimed at in the attempt to construct a synthetic, 

 or cosmic, system of philosophy. There has been no 

 further transcending of experience than is implied in 

 the assumption that the order of Nature is the same 

 in the Pleiades and in the Solar System until we 

 learn to the contrary ; and it would be difficult to 



^ Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Tart I. chap. iii. ; Part II. chaps. 



