IN THE REALM OF MIND. 345 



tural Forces — it would be sound enough. An*d so, 

 the second of the two sentences I have quoted sets 

 forth the central idea of that Philosophy in its most 

 favourable light. But in the first of those two sen- 

 tences we have a concentration of all that is erro- 

 neous in Positivism, and at the same time a typical 

 example of the ambiguities and obscurities of lan- 

 guage on which the fallacies of that Philosophy 

 depend. There is hardly a single word in that 

 sentence which is not ambiguously used. " Phe- 

 nomena" and "facts," "govern" and "control," 

 and " interfere with," are all used in ambiguous 

 senses ; whilst, as usual, the words " Law" and 

 " Invariable " are used not only ambiguously, but 

 unintelligibly. In order to test these ambigu- 

 ities we have only to compare the two sentences 

 together. " Phenomena " in the one sentence 

 seems to correspond with " facts" in the other. 

 Yet, we have this result, — that " phenomena " 

 are governed by Invariable Law, whilst " facts " 

 are controllable by human Will. It would ap- 

 pear, then, that the " phenomena " which are 

 governed by Law cannot be the same with the 

 " facts," which are controllable by Will : — or else, 



