73 
to learn what the physiological metaphysics have to say upon 
this point. We scarcely pause to notice Spencer's definition 
of the feeling as giving us the materials between which rela- 
tions are discerned. We observe in passing, however, that 
“ a feeling, as we here define it, is any portion of conscious- 
ness which occupies a place sufficiently large to give it a per- 
ceivable individuality, " — i.e., in common speech it is the act 
of apprehending the minutest element or object that can be 
distinguished. But what is a relation as of likeness, or identity, 
of causation, or adaptation or end ? What and where does 
the mind find these subtle links of significance by which facts 
— called feelings by Spencer — are connected together into 
those combinations and grow into those structures which men 
call science, chief and noblest of which is the science of sciences, 
the physiological metaphysics, of which Development is the 
charmed word ? Listen to the answer : (t A relation between 
feelings is, on the contrary, characterized by occupying no 
appreciable part of consciousness. Take away the terms it 
unites and it disappears along with them, having no inde- 
pendent place, no individuality of its own. It is true that 
under an ultimate analysis, ivhat we call a relation proves to be 
itself a hincl of feeling — the momentary feeling accompanying 
the transition from one conspicuous feeling to an adjacent 
conspicuous feeling (§ 65, Principles of Psychology ). Here 
we have the key to the physiological metaphysics ! The acts 
of discerning relations, the related objects, and the relations 
discerned are feelings. The sublime interpretations of the 
scientific mind, such as Kepler, and Newton, and Davy, and 
Faraday, and Kirchhoff have now and then achieved, and 
which have elevated them to such triumphant joy as only 
befits a moment of divine inspiration, and the analogies which 
they have discovered and applied — these, physiologically 
explained, are brief, inappreciable, and yet faintly appre- 
ciated emotions in the transitions from one feeling to another. 
But what is science if it rests on relations which are con- 
ceived after this fashion ? Let the student of her history 
who knows what science has done and is now doing, ask 
whether this chemico-physiological explanation does justice to 
those acts of sagacious insight by which science has ascended 
to that lofty seat from which she dares either proudly to dis- 
pense with God or confidently yet humbly to read the thoughts 
of God ? Whatever else may be true of the solutions which the 
physiological metaphysics give of other problems, they furnish 
no satisfactory explanation of the processes by which science 
itself has been evolved into being or of the authority by which 
she commands the assent of mankind. 
VOL. XIV. 
G 
