296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



philosophers in this country. From the very nature of human intelligence, it is 

 attempted to be shown that it can only know what is finite and relative, and 

 that therefore the absolute and infinite the human mind is, by an inherent and 

 insuperable disability, debarred from knowing. . . . May it not be asked, for 

 one thing, whether, in the assertion, as the result of an examination of the hu- 

 man intellect, that it is incapable of knowing what lies beyond the finite, there 

 is not involved an obvious self-contradiction ? The examination of the mind 

 can be conducted only by the mind, and if the instrument be, as is alleged, lim- 

 ited and defective, the result of the inquiry must partake of that defectiveness. 

 Again, does not the knowledge of a limit imply already the power to transcend 

 it ? In affirming that human science is incapable of crossing the bounds of the 

 finite world, is it not a necessary presupposition that you who so affirm have 

 crossed these bounds? " 



That this objection is one I am not disinclined to recognize, will be 

 inferred when I state that it is one I have myself raised. While pre- 

 paring the second edition of the " Principles of Psychology," I found, 

 among my memoranda, a note which still bore the wafers by which it 

 had been attached to the original manuscript (unless, indeed, it had 

 been transferred from the MS. of " First Principles," which its allu- 

 sions seems to imply). It was this: 



" I may here remark, in passing, that the several reasonings, including the 

 one above quoted, by which Sir "William Hamilton would demonstrate the pure 

 relativity of our knowledge — reasonings which clearly establish many important 

 truths, and with which in the main I agree — are yet capable of being turned 

 against himself, when he definitively concludes that it is impossible for us to know 

 the absolute. For, to positively assert that the absolute cannot be known is, in 

 a certain sense, to assert a lenowledge of it — is to know it as unknowable. To 

 aflSrm that human intelligence is confined to the conditioned is to put an abso- 

 lute limit to human intelligence, and implies absolute lenowledge. Tt seems to 

 me that the 'learned ignorance ' with which philosophy ends must be carried 

 a step further; and, instead of positively saying that the absolute is unknow- 

 able, we must say that we cannot tell whether it is knowable or not." 



Why I omitted this note I cannot now remember. Possibly it was 

 because reconsideration disclosed the reply that might be made to the 

 contained objection. For, while it is true that the intellect cannot 

 prove its own competence, since it must postulate its competence in 

 the course of the proof, and so beg the question, yet it does not 

 therefore follow that it cannot prove its own incompetence, in respect 

 of questions of certain kinds. Its inability in respect of such questions 

 has two conceivable causes. It may be that the deliverances of Reason 

 in general are invalid, in which case the incompetence of Reason to 

 solve questions of a certain class is implied by its general incompe- 

 tence ; or it may be that the deliverances of Reason, valid within a 

 certain range, themselves end in the conclusion that Reason is inca- 

 pable beyond that range. So that, while there can be no proof of 

 competence, because competence is postulated in each step of the 

 demonstration, there may be proof of incompetence either (1) if the 



