and mankind had been engaged for ages in a practical effort to solve them before metaphysics were dreamed of as a distinct subject of human inquiry.

It is worthy of notice here that our author has sought to lighten the burdens of his self-imposed task, by the assumption of a novel and unwarrantable definition of the term metaphysics, namely, “that its office is to penetrate into the essences of things;" that is, to determine the nature of substance considered apart from its attributes; a definition which, à priori, would seem to place it beyond the scope of human reason. But what school of philosophy proposes to do this? And, could such a one be found, its vagaries would not justify the "Io triumphe" with which Mr. Lewes celebrates his bloodless victory over this man of straw. The problem is not, what are substance, mind, God, apart from their attributes; but, are there essences or substances underlying the phenomena of sensation and consciousness, whose existence and attributes reason can authoritatively determine. This simple correction alone undermines one half of his labored arguments.

Nor does his attempt to demonstrate, a priori, the impossibility of philosophy relieve the baldness of his miserable sophisms. Such an argument on positive principles can have no deeper basis than experience. And we hazard nothing in propounding it as an axiomatic truth, that no argument based upon phenomena can disprove the existence of causation, substance, or a Supreme Being; the relative cannot by any possibility exclude the absolute, nor can it even justify a denial of its probable existence. An affirmation of phenomena may not perhaps involve (theoretically) the idea of an underlying substance-may raise no logical presumption of real existence; but it is sheer absurdity to assume that it can throw any doubt, however slight, upon our practical faith in either. The Kantian theory is the logical limit in this direction. If the pure reason cannot transport its subjective processes beyond its own domain in order to establish the reality of objective existence, it is equally powerless to use them to disprove it. It cannot, therefore, invalidate the testimony of the practical reason, or the inherent faith of humanity in a Supreme Being. The fundamental postulate of positivism, namely, "that science is radically opposed to and excludes all philosophy and theology," is consequently a baseless chimera.

Mr. Lewes's argument on his own principles (and by them it should be judged) is less forcible than it would be were it grounded upon some one of the systems which he repudiates. Having with M. Comte denied in advance the validity of all conceptions of first

and final causes, and having laid down the postulate that we know, and can know, nothing even of phenomena except their invariable relations of succession and resemblance, he is logically precluded from the use of all a priori considerations or premises whatever. The utmost limit of validity which can be accorded, therefore, to his denial of the possibility of metaphysics is simply this: that inasmuch as all past efforts have failed, there is nothing to warrant the hope of future success. Any step beyond this lame and impotent conclusion is a virtual abnegation of his own cherished system, and is inadmissible unaccompanied with a formal renunciation of its errors. His argument, it is true, is a seeming induction based upon experience, but it is as worthless as that which declared on the testimony of centuries that all swans are white.

We do not deem it necessary to follow Mr. Lewes through the various epochs of his history, nor to make any issue with him as to the verity of his statements, although the onesidedness of his views, and the too obvious grasping (everywhere apparent) after every discouraging fact which may serve to darken the foreground of his picture, offer ample scope for criticism. It suffices, however, to have called the attention of the thoughtful reader to the essential fact that, on his own principles, his elaborate volumes are worthless as proofs of his initial dogma "that a valid philosophy is an impossibility." Were the failures of metaphysics in the past tenfold more complete than he represents them to be, his argument were still insufficient as a demonstration of his proposition. A necessary link in the chain of his logic would still be hopelessly wanting. Moreover, it will appear in the sequel, notwithstanding his gratulations over the superior clearness and certainty of positivism-the refuge offered us from the dreary cycle of ever-recurring skepticism which he alleges to be the inevitable terminus of all metaphysical speculation that it is itself a system of skepticism more arid, more dreary, and more hopeless-an utter nihilism that entombs both subject and object, substance and phenomena, in one common

grave.

His second proposition, namely, that all our ideas are derived from experience, (that is, from sensation,) will require more attention, inasmuch as it involves the real central point of all metaphysical controversy. He has well said in reference to it: "This question is all important. And what gives it its importance? The conviction that if we are sent into this world with certain connate principles of truth, those principles cannot be false; that if, for example, the principle of causality is one which is antecedent to all experience, and is inseparable from the mind, we are forced to pronounce it an

ultimate truth." The nature and necessity of a criterium in philosophy is a point upon which our author expends much time and labor, proposing the problem as an experimentum crucis by which the claims of metaphysics may be tested. Ordinarily he deals with the question fairly, but at times he seems to demand a criterium which would not only be an impossibility, but an absurdity: one which shall not merely be independent of experience, but independent of the thinking being also; a requirement which not only transcends the possible limits of human reason, but also any rational conception of Divine Omniscience. To the more moderate view embodied in the words cited above there can be no reasonable exception taken, and we shall assume it to be the real position of our author on this fundamental point. It is almost needless to add that we fully coincide with him in the opinion there, expressed"that if we are sent into this world with certain connate principles of truth, those principles cannot be false."

The all-important question, therefore, occurs: "Are all our ideas. derived from experience?" Mr. Lewes affirms, we deny; the onus probandi, therefore, rests with him. There is, as will be remarked. on very slight analysis of this question, an indistinctness and indefiniteness in the verbiage employed that necessitates a preliminary limitation of the terms. The phrase, independent of experience, is to the last degree equivocal; like the famed tent of the fairy princess Paribanon, it may suffice to cover only the palm of the hand, or it may envelop in its ample folds a numerous and well appointed army. In one sense, assuredly, we have no ideas that are independent of experience; nor, in that sense, could we have, even on the most extreme theory of innate ideas; for by the very initial utterance of the reason which reveals them, they become a part of our experience, and could not, therefore, be independent of it. But a more natural construction is possible, according to the theories of Kant and Cousin, who have shown conclusively that sensation must furnish the occasion, the stimulus, to arouse the slumbering reason to action. But this neither implies nor necessitates the admission that the conceptions of time, space, and causation are mere generalizations from experience, or that they depend upon the verity of sensation for their validity. In the only sense, therefore, in which it is pertinent to consider the problem at all, namely, Are these conceptions derived from, and dependent upon sensation? we answer unhesitatingly, No! and join issue with our author, whose line of argument we now propose to examine critically. His positions, if we do not misconceive them, are embodied virtually in the two following general considerations, namely: 1. A

new theory of ratiocination, by means of which he hopes to exclude from the domain of thought all absolute elements and a priori conceptions as illegitimate; and, 2. An attempt to deduce philosophically all the "so called" necessary truths from sensation.

Subordinately to these, he has introduced some objections to the opposite doctrine, which may receive a passing notice. His theory of reasoning possesses at least the merit of novelty, conjoined to a kind of Condillackian simplicity; but it sadly needs verification in order to give it even the vraisemblance of truth. It is as follows:

"Reasoning, if I apprehend it, is the same intellectual process as perception; with this difference, that perception is inferential concerning objects present, and reasoning is inferential respecting objects absent. Perception is distinguished from sensation by the addition of certain inferences; as when we perceive a substance to be hard, square, odorous, sweet, etc., from certain inferences rising out of its color, form, etc., although we do not actually touch, smell, or taste the object. What is this process of inference? It is a presentation before the consciousness of something which has been formerly observed in conjunction with the object, and is therefore supposed now to be actually present in fact, although not present in sensation. In each and every case of perception a something is added to sensation, and that something is inferential, or the assumption of some quality present in fact which is not present in sense. Reason is likewise inferential, but about objects which, although they were formerly given in sense, are now absent altogether. Reasoning is the presentation before the consciousness of objects, which if actually present would affect the consciousness in a similar manner."

The strange theory of perception contained in the above extract merits at least a passing notice. Mr. Lewes obviously confounds perception with association of ideas. It is absurd to say, as he does, I perceive its sweetness when I see a lump of sugar." Perception is experienced only in connection with an actual sensation. In the case noted, I may imagine-may believe-nay, may know that the sugar I look upon is sweet, but I do not perceive it to be so until I taste it. By rigorous analysis, perception seems to involve: 1. A simple recognition of the sensation experienced; and, 2. A reference of that sensation to some quality of an external object as its exciting cause; and these elements are present in the first as well as in all subsequent acts of perception.

Nor can a more lenient judgment be accorded to his theory of ratiocination. It involves at least two fatal defects, namely:

1. It is incapable of accounting for some of the more obvious. trains of thought which enter into the experience of common life, outlawing them as completely as Mr. Lewes hopes to outlaw the absolute conceptions of metaphysics by showing that the latter (that is, the ideas of substance, infinity, etc.) have no outward exter

nal objects corresponding to them, which ever have or ever can be made present to the senses. But, unfortunately for so promising a theory, it is easy to show that the abstract conceptions of the higher mathematics lie equally beyond the grasp of sensation, and must therefore be included in the same irrational or suprarational category. Nor are other illustrations wanting; the ideas of honor, virtue, benevolence, goodness, and, in a word, all the essential elements of the moral code are ideal conceptions, which were never present to any of the senses and can never be; they are therefore-Mr. Lewes being judge-wholly without the pale of rational thought, for he has declared in unequivocal language that nothing can be a legitimate object of thought which has not been, and cannot again be made present to some of the senses.

But, secondly, this theory utterly ignores the one essential element of all reasoning, namely, the connecting link or common measure between the compared facts or phenomena. The process it describes is purely mechanical. One fact is brought in contact with another, and the agreement or discrepance of the two noted, or rather measured. But what is the measuring unit? what the connecting link? Mr. Lewes's sole answer is: "Reasoning is the representation before the consciousness in their natural order of facts once present, but now absent." But what then? How or in virtue of what is the conclusion drawn, and by what agency? If reason, as he affirms, is destitute of all creative power, and is limited in its scope to a strictly reflective or formative process, (that is, to molding into shape crude sensations,) the process is an insoluble mystery. The question then recurs, What is the common measure? Is it itself a fact? If so, the chain is endless. Is it a purely subjective ideal element? What then is the guaranty of its validity? Either alternative is fatal: the one ends in an utter absurdity, the other in an acknowledgment of mind as a supraphysical entity endowed with creative power. No mere function of the brain, acting either mochanically or chemically in the cerebral laboratory; no voltaic action between the medullary and cineritious matter; no vibratory motion of the cerebro-spinal center, can evolve from two adjacent facts any inference whatever, much less a connected train of thought, such as that which endowed the world with the Principia of Newton, or the Mecanique Celeste of La Place. On any theory the problem is a difficult one; but when mind itself is declared to be a function of the brain, in the same sense that digestion is a function of the stomach, the difficulties become insuperable, and no amount of declamation about the absurdity of metaphysical entities can long divert attention from the greater absurdities involved in the process of