REPLIES TO CRITICISMS. 409 



has to justify them by showing their congruity with all other dicta of 

 consciousness." In pursuance of this distinctly-avowed mode of proced- 

 ure I assume as true, provisionally, certain modes of formulating the 

 manifestations of the unknown objective activity, certain modes of 

 formulating the manifestations of the unknown subjective activity, and 

 certain resulting modes of conceiving the operations of the one on the 

 other. These provisional assumptions having been carried out to all their 

 consequences, and these consequences proved to be congruous with one 

 another and with the original assumptions, these original assumptions 

 are justified; and, if, finally, I assert, as I have repeatedly asserted, 

 that the terms in which I express my assumptions and carry on my 

 operations are but symbolic, and that all I have done is to show that, 

 by certain ways of symbolizing, perfect harmony results — invariable 

 agreement between the symbols in which I frame my expectations 

 and the symbols which occur in experience — I cannot be blamed for 

 incoherence. Lastly, should it be said that this regarding of every 

 thing constituting experience and thought as symbolic has a very 

 shadowy aspect, I reply that these which I speak of as symbols are 

 real relatively to our consciousness, and are symbolic only in their 

 relation to the Ultimate Reality. 



That these explanations will make clear the coherence of views 

 which before seemed " fundamentally incoherent," I feel by no means 

 certain ; since, as I did not perceive the difficulties presented by the 

 exposition as at first made, I may similarly fail to perceive the diffi- 

 culties in this explanation. Originally, I had intended to complete 

 the " Principles of Psychology " by a division showing how the results 

 reached in the preceding divisions, physiological and psychological, 

 analytic and synthetic, subjective and objective, harmonized with one 

 another, and were but different aspects of the same aggregate of phe- 

 nomena. But the work was already bulky; and I concluded that this 

 division might be dispensed with, because the congruities to be 

 pointed out were sufficiently obvious. So little was I conscious of 

 the alleged "inability to harmonize different lines of thought." Mr. 

 Sidgwick's perplexities, however, show me that such an exposition of 

 concords is needful. 



I have reserved to the last one of the first objections made to the 

 metaphysico-theological doctrine set forth in "First Principles," and 

 implied in the several volumes that have succeeded it. I refer to one 

 urged by an able metaphysician, the Rev. James Martineau, in an essay 

 entitled "Science, Nescience, and Faith," and which, effective against 

 my argument as it stands, shows the need for some further develop- 

 ment of my argument. That Mr. Martineau's criticism may be under- 

 stood, I must quote the passages it concerns. Continuing the reason- 

 ing employed against Hamilton and Mansel, to show that our con- 

 sciousness of that which transcends knowledge is positive, and not, as 

 they allege, negative, I have said : 



