542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



will limit myself to the corollary lie draws from the doctrine of the 

 Relativity of Knowledge, as held by me. Rightly pointing out that 

 I hold this in common with " Messrs. Mill, Lewes, Bain, and Huxley," 

 but not adding, as he should have done, that I hold it in common with 

 Hamilton, Manscl, and the long list of predecessors through whom 

 Hamilton traced it, the reviewer proceeds to infer from this doctrine 

 of relativity that no absolute truth of any kind can be asserted — not 

 even the absolute truth of the doctrine of relativity itself. And then 

 he leaves it to be supposed by his reader that this inference tells espe- 

 cially against the system he is criticising. If, however, the reviewer's 

 inference is valid, this " denial of all truth " must be charged against 

 the doctrines of thinkers called orthodox, as well as against the doc- 

 trines of those many philosophers, from Aristotle down to Kant, who 

 have said the same thing. But now I go further, and reply that, 

 against that form of the doctrine of relativity held by me, this allega- 

 tion cannot be made with the same effect as it can against preceding 

 forms of the doctrine. For I diverge from other relativists in assert- 

 ing that the existence of a non-relative is not only a positive deliver- 

 ance of consciousness, but a deliverance transcending in certainty all 

 others whatever, and is one without which the doctrine of relativity 

 cannot be framed in thought. I have urged that, " unless a real Non- 

 relative or Absolute be postulated, the Relative itself becomes abso- 

 lute, and so brings the argument to a contradiction ; " ' and else- 

 where I have described this consciousness of a Non-relative mani- 

 fested to us through the Relative as " deeper than demonstration — 

 deeper even than definite cognition — deep as the very nature of 

 mind ; " 2 which seems to me to be saying as emphatically as possible 

 that, while all other truths may be held as relative, this truth must be 

 held as absolute. Yet, strangely enough, though contending thus 

 against the pure relativists, and holding with the reviewer, that 

 " every asserter of such a (purely-relative) philosophy must be in the 

 position of a man who saws across the branch of a tree on which he 

 actually sits, at a point between himself and the trunk," 3 I am singled 

 out by him as though this were my own predicament. So far, then, 

 from admitting that the view I hold " involves the denial of all truth," 

 I assert that, having at the outset posited the coexistence of subject 

 and object as a deliverance of consciousness which precedes all reason- 

 ing 4 — having subsequently shown, analytically, that this postulate is 

 in every way verified, 5 and that in its absence the proof of relativity- 

 is impossible — my view is distinguished by an exactly-opposite trait. 



The justification of his second proposition the reviewer commences 

 by saying that " in the first place the process of Evolution, as under- 

 stood by Mr. Spencer, compels him to be at one with Mr. Darwin in 



1 " First Principles," § 26. 2 Ibid., § 62. 



3 Compare "Principles of Psychology," §§ 88, 95, 391, 401, 406. 



4 " First Principles," §§ 39, 45. 6 " Principles of Psychology," part vii. 



