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llie late Professor Trendelenburg 1 , of Berlin, in an essay on 
tlie Ultimate Ground of Distinction among Philosophical Sys- 
tems, discriminates as follows: — “In all systems of philosophy, 
either force is conceived as superior to thought, so that 
thought is not primary, but rather the result, product, and 
accident of blind forces ; or thought is made superior to force, 
so that blind force alone is not primary, but is the outcome of 
thought ; or, finally, thought and force are represented as at 
bottom the same, and only distinguished in human opinion.” 
C Historische Beitrdge zur Philosophic, vol. ii. 1855, p. 10.) 
The disjunction seems exhaustive, and there can be no doubt 
under which member of it we are to range ourselves. Not the 
first alternative, which is espoused by materialism, nor the 
third, which corresponds to Spinozism, but the second covers 
the ground of our Christian idealism. We hold that primacy 
in rank and in power belongs in this universe to thought, 
or intelligence. This is our philosophical attitude, which 
becomes further differentiated and illuminated by the addition 
to it of Christian faith. 
The scientific defence of this position is accomplished partly 
by metaphysical argumentation, and partly by analysis of the 
results of physical and psychological observation. What is 
true in thought, we claim, can not be false in nature, but 
must find in the world of natural reality its confirmation and 
realization. If the ideal controls the real, if intelligence 
governs force, there must exist in the world of real forces 
indications of this control and government. 
In the acquisition of knoAvledge we proceed from the known 
to the unknown, from the sign to the thing signified, and 
(quite generally) from the part to the whole. Moreover, if 
knowledge is for us possible, it is, of course, so only under the 
conditions inherent in our nature and in the nature of real 
things. It is because man is a part of nature, that he may 
d priori assume a fundamental likeness or other relation 
between what is essential in his own nature and what is essen- 
tial in the world around him. The physical (phenomenal) 
identity of the human frame with the natural elements is 
admitted and established. Analogy would lead us to suppose 
that what is specially characteristic of man — the developed 
reason and moral nature — is not a wholly incommensurable, 
isolated quality in him, but that it has its analogue or cor- 
relate in nature — or, that there exists in the latter something 
so akin to man (as Plato would say) that only the reason of 
man, and not the senses, can apprehend it. Analogy leads us 
to look for the ideal in nature. 
And, as matter of fact, we do find, or think we find, in 
