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to do with morals. Nature has many sides, and truth many 
relations. Our present danger lies chiefly in the tendency to 
obliterate some of these sides, to overlook some of these 
relations. This is the vice of the Positivist. We are told by 
him that every branch of knowledge leads the inquirer through 
three stages; that the mind, on seeing phenomena, first desires 
to know the causes at work producing such phenomena, then 
leaving causes, it seeks after abstract forces , and lastly, confines 
itself to laws , — “ the God of this world, which blinds the minds 
of them that believe not.” The process is described as first 
theological or supernatural, then metaphysical, and then scien- 
tific. Supernatural agency gives place to abstract forces, and 
abstract forces in turn give place to the laws of phenomena. 
The scientific or positive stage is final and exhaustive, it 
swallows up all the rest. So that what is theological or 
metaphysical passes into imagination, and the only thing that 
remains for certain, is science — a conclusion opposed to facts 
of both a subjective and objective character. The human 
soul has its presentative faculties, by means of which thought 
becomes possible. The external senses present phenomena of 
a material kind, upon which physical science is built. The 
psychological facts of human consciousness present matter out 
of which metaphysical philosophy is formed. And the internal 
moral sense presents the facts of approbation and disapproba- 
tion, which arise on seeing the actions of rational and voluntary 
agents, supplying us with a foundation for ethical philosophy. 
Neither science nor philosophy is possible apart from facts or 
special faculties. The senses take cognizance of material 
phenomena — the intellect of causes or abstract forces — and 
the moral sense of qualities, feelings, purpose, &c. There 
are, therefore, different stages of thought through w T hich we 
pass in pursuing the objects of knowledge, and the soul has 
its different faculties answering to the different classes of 
truth presented, according as that truth is of a physical, me- 
taphysical, or moral kind. The soul of man stands in a pre- 
established relation to those external sources of excitement 
which call up thought and emotion. 
There is then room for distinction and discrimination, whether 
we look at the nature of man or the nature of things — whether 
we analyze the subjective feelings and impressions in the 
human soul, or the objective nature of the truths sought. 
Interaction and relation, indeed, necessitate the special con- 
sideration of these presentative faculties which act, and of those 
truths which are related to one another; for we can only arrive 
at a correct general view through a knowledge of particulars. 
Generalization is possible only through abstraction. But, 
