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not be reached by any one who can understand good plain 
English. It is required, we think, only that both these kinos 
of knowledge shall be expressed in such language. And we 
are strongly disposed to believe that such an embodiment o 
truth, in easily 'intelligible words, is as necessary to the real 
knowledge of the Philosopher as it is to those whom 
he would teach. As the modern mathematician makes Ins 
symbols “ think for him,” so we fear do some of the most noted 
men in other departments of Science, allow mere phrases to 
do the work which belongs to clear and careful thinking. By 
this they deceive themselves as much as they mislead others, 
and perhaps even more. Mr. Stuart Mill well says that “the 
mere forms of logic and metaphysics can blind mankind to the 
total absence of their substance.”* This is strong language, 
written too by a philosopher of philosophers, and not of 
common men; but it is sadly true. „ 
In endeavouring, therefore, to make our consideration oi 
this great subject really useful, I will do my best to make my 
meaning clear and accessible to the common mind. -Not that 
I think this possible without some degree of earnest industry 
on the part of those who read that which is written, but that 
all who are willing to give a moderate measure of effort on 
their part shall enjoy the fruit of that effort in a somewhat in- 
creased possession of the truth. 
By Physical Science I understand that thought by which 
material objects are truly represented in the mind. Not, how- 
ever, such thought as merely agrees with these objects as they 
exist in nature, but such as is known thus to agree. What 
are called “ hypotheses ” are thoughts which in some cases 
agree with the objects to which they are related, but so long 
as they are “ hypothetical ” they do not belong to science, 
properly so called, inasmuch as they are not knowledge. 
Reason has as yet failed to lay hold on them— they live only 
as conjectural notions in the imagination. I cannot help 
thinking that all such thoughts should be considered as alien 
to really scientific investigation. 
By Metaphysical Science I understand that true thought 
which represents all such objects as lie above and beyond the 
material. The student of pure Physics has strictly speaking 
no thought of mind. The student of pure Metaphysics has no 
thought of matter— all his reasonings are of thought itself . 
The student of truth takes equally earnest care to deal with 
all thought which stands to reason, whatever the object of 
* Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy , p. 61. Ed. 1866. 
