IT 
 
 \s 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 ST. GEORGE MIVART, F.R.S. 
 
 H 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 1895 
 
T5 53 
 
 Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 Ipart 31 
 
 IT has been said reproachfully that man 
 is fond of novelty. The reproach is unrea- 
 sonable, since change is essential to both 
 our bodily and mental health. Only through 
 changes in its surroundings is the conscious- 
 ness of the child first awakened, and only 
 by the aid of fresh external or internal mod- 
 ifications is consciousness maintained in ac- 
 
 4 
 
 tivity. 
 
 Moreover, though analogous social and 
 political conditions frequently recur, it is 
 impossible that any past experience can 
 ever be truly repeated, and this not only 
 on account of the ceaseless changes of our 
 environment, but also from the very condi- 
 
 224214 
 
;' fcEIJFIrtJL 'SCIENCE 
 
 tions of our bodily frame. A nerve contin- 
 uously stimulated fails, after a time, to re- 
 spond to the stimulus, and thus it is that our 
 appetite becomes jaded by an unceasing 
 supply of what might at first have been the 
 object of keen pursuit, and positive aversion 
 often succeeds desire. Our taste changes 
 again and again as we travel from childhood 
 to old age, and education and culture noto- 
 riously modify man's inclinations and senti- 
 ments. 
 
 Thus it is simply inevitable that the feel- 
 ings, tastes, and intellectual occupations of 
 succeeding centuries must always be more 
 or less divergent, although analogous recur- 
 rences may again and again take place. 
 
 That conditions should so recur is at least 
 as desirable as it is inevitable. For of the 
 many objects which merit our attention, all 
 cannot at the same time be attended to in 
 the degree they merit. Thus it is that in 
 each age some objects may be not only un- 
 duly neglected, but even disliked, so that 
 they need to be subsequently recalled to the 
 attention of succeeding times. After the aes- 
 
CHANGES OF TASTE AND CONDITION 3 
 
 thetic outburst of Hellas came the wondrous 
 jurisprudence and political sagacity of Rome, 
 paving the way for those noble creations of 
 mediaevalism, feudal honor, devoted asceti- 
 cism, majestic worship, and the keenest polish 
 which the human intellect has ever received. 
 
 Then blossomed that great " recurrence," 
 the Renascence, once more bringing Plato 
 into fashion, with a love for physical science 
 akin to that which had existed in the mind 
 of Aristotle. Therewith there naturally arose 
 a feeling of aversion from what had charmed 
 men before, with a neglect of one depart- 
 ment of nature, just as another department 
 had been previously neglected by mediaeval 
 students. 
 
 Political freedom and social amelioration 
 were the next objects of pursuit among civ- 
 ilized mankind, and they have continued, 
 with physical science, to be the main occu- 
 pation of those not absorbed in seeking 
 wealth ; for wealth, as a source of pleasure 
 and for its own sake, has doubtless been the 
 pursuit of most men since the first human 
 society arose. 
 
4 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 The occupations of the immense majority 
 of that part of mankind which is raised above 
 the sordid need of seeking its daily bread, 
 and is not merely devoted to pleasure, may 
 be said to be travel, politics, philanthropy, 
 the promotion of progress, useful knowl- 
 edge, physical science, and art all, vari- 
 ously and in different degrees, good and 
 laudable. They are also practical pursuits. 
 They are concerned with " doing " as well as 
 with " knowing." What is practical has spe- 
 cial charms for us, for the English-speaking 
 races of mankind are, in all climes, eminent- 
 ly doers. Our profound respect for work, 
 for " doing " (as has been before remarked), 
 is shown by the familiar usage of our moth- 
 er-tongue. We English speakers greet each 
 other with, " How do you do ?" A French- 
 man says, with an implied regard for appear- 
 ances, " How do you carry yourself ?" A 
 German ascends at once to the highest ab- 
 stractions, and asks, " How goes it ?" A 
 Spaniard, as one who first crossed the At- 
 lantic, inquires, " How do you go f" while 
 the Italian, for so long a time unprogressive, 
 
SCIENCE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 5 
 
 says, " How do you stand?" or even insinu- 
 ates the dolce far niente by asking, " How do 
 you exist ?" Only the English-speaking man 
 seems instinctively to feel that you cannot 
 be in a satisfactory state unless you are doing 
 something. To those who are aware they so 
 feel, and are therewith content, these papers 
 are addressed. Their aim is to be eminently 
 practical. 
 
 But readers who know anything of the 
 present writer may reply : " You are not 
 practical yourself. You are no politician or 
 mechanician, no lawyer or medical practi- 
 tioner, not even an artist ; you pursue sci- 
 ence for its own sake!" The statement is 
 true, but has no force as an objection ; for 
 we know how often the most solid and ex- 
 tensive practical gains have been due to ab- 
 struse and seemingly most unpractical exer- 
 tions of thought and endeavor. In America 
 useful deductions from abstruse studies have 
 been exceptionally developed, and the whole 
 civilized world is being lighted and men are 
 invited to read, to play, to pray, or to sin 
 through the help of Franklin's brain. 
 
6 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 This Will be universally assented to, for the 
 value and the trustworthy progress of phys- 
 ical science are unquestioned. Many fool- 
 ish discussions are carried on in the world 
 about us ; but certainly no one is so foolish 
 as to question the value of such science or 
 the fact of its progress. Certainly I, who 
 have loved it from my earliest years and de- 
 voted such small powers as I possess to its 
 service, have no disposition to undervalue it. 
 I well know that the study of living organ- 
 isms has, since I tan recollect, made great 
 progress, and I see grounds for absolute cer- 
 tainty now about many zoological facts and 
 laws which were doubtful or undreamed of 
 when I was a lad. 
 
 Nevertheless such science is not every- 
 thing, and I am profoundly convinced that 
 there are deeper questions which merit the 
 best attention of all practical men. 
 
 Some may here exclaim : " Ah ! you mean 
 religion. It is true that, with very many in 
 Europe, it has gone entirely out of fashion, 
 save as a ray of emotion gilding some philan- 
 thropic sentiment ; but it is not so in Amer- 
 
INDEPENDENT OF CREED AND THEOLOGY 7 
 
 ica, where so many creeds count such multi- 
 tudes of followers, and where respectable 
 citizens have, as a rule, respectable church- 
 sittings." 
 
 But my object is neither to champion nor 
 to combat any special creed, but to strictly 
 confine myself to the sufficiently wide do- 
 main of science external to denominational 
 theology, though it may be we shall find 
 that pure reason affords a sure basis for the 
 fundamental beliefs of all theology. I mean, 
 therefore, nothing to which any section of 
 my readers can, I venture to think, reason- 
 ably object, whatever their theological be- 
 liefs or disbeliefs may be. I desire to elim- 
 inate all such questions and to confine myself 
 purely and simply to matters which regard 
 well -ascertained scientific truths. I desire 
 but to call attention to propositions which 
 must, I believe, be assented to by every con- 
 sistent lover of science who is convinced that 
 at least some scientific truths have been 
 brought to our knowledge truths on which 
 we can with entire confidence rely. But 
 what I refer to has a much wider scope than 
 
8 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 even physical science. It concerns religious 
 devotees no less than followers of fashion or 
 men who seek their many -million pile, It 
 concerns no creed, indeed, directly, nor any 
 pleasure, policy, or art ; and yet it alone 
 gives value to each and all of them. The 
 essence of a creed is something to believe ; 
 yet how can we believe what we in no way 
 know ? 
 
 It may be objected that " belief may ex- 
 ceed knowledge." Yet no one out of Bed^ 
 lam can believe anything save on some 
 grounds; and he ought to know the grounds 
 of his belief, and be able to give an account 
 of the faith that is in him. Our science, then, 
 concerns no particular creed, but all creeds ; 
 no art, but all arts ; no science, but all sci- 
 ences ; no rule of conduct, but all rules of 
 conduct. It is the most fundamental, but 
 also the most far-reaching ; the most central, 
 yet the most centrifugal ; the most intensely 
 personal and, nevertheless, the most univer- 
 sal of all questions and of all truths. 
 
 As it must underlie all our pleasures no 
 less than all our knowledge, it might be 
 
SOCRATIC METHOD OF TEACHING 9 
 
 called, what indeed it has been termed, " the 
 Gay Science." Yet with our love for what is 
 practical, and with our recognition that we 
 have to be " up and doing," I prefer since 
 it supplies the only solid ground for our ac- 
 tivity to call it The Helpful Science. 
 
 But since so much good and solid work has 
 been and is being done in all departments 
 of science and art ; since social amelioration 
 goes on apace and philanthropy was never 
 more active ; since, also, no good work can 
 be done without knowing how to do it, it 
 would seem to follow that this " helpful sci- 
 ence " must be already so widely known that 
 to write about it (as here proposed), can but 
 be superfluous. Several meanings, however, 
 attach to the expression " to know," and we 
 may and do know many things without our 
 ever having explicitly adverted to and recog- 
 nized the fact that we do know them. 
 
 Socrates, as we have all read, used, when 
 addressing the men of Athens, to call him- 
 self a "midwife ;" by which he meant that his 
 business was not really to teach them, but 
 to draw forth from and exhibit to his hearers 
 
10 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 truths which they bore unconsciously in their 
 own bosoms. I would humbly follow in the 
 footsteps of that great man, and endeavor to 
 explicitly set forth certain very fundamen- 
 tal verities which we all possess implicitly, 
 though we may never have had the eyes of 
 our intellect directly turned upon them. 
 
 But here I may at once be met by this ob- 
 jection and a protest : " You say you wish to 
 imitate Socrates, but he was a philosopher. 
 Now we are quite willing to be talked to 
 about science and art, politics, morals, or 
 philanthropy; but, if you please, no 'phi- 
 losophy ' for us ! We detest metaphysics 
 and will have nothing to do with your 'quid- 
 dities ' and ' essences/ ' the transcendental ' 
 and 'the absolute/ all which we consign with 
 a hearty execration to the bottom of the 
 Dead Sea!" 
 
 I, nevertheless, entreat my readers to grant 
 me a modicum of tolerance and to read on a 
 little more. I can ask this with a better 
 grace since I deeply sympathize with the 
 feeling which might dictate such a protest as 
 that I have just supposed. 
 
"METAPHYSICS" AND "PHILOSOPHY" n 
 
 It is indeed by no means wonderful that 
 men should turn away in disgust from the 
 mere sight or sound of the word " metaphys- 
 ics " above all, that English-speaking men 
 and women should do so. An eminently 
 practical set of people, however energetic, 
 could hardly be disposed to work, whether 
 with hand or brain, without a fair promise 
 of some good result like a squirrel in a 
 turning cage. And certainly no much better 
 result can be expected from spending time 
 over " philosophy," as it is set before us in 
 most modern works on that subject. Philos- 
 ophy, it must also be confessed, has for the 
 last few centuries had little progress to boast 
 of. Moreover it has been presented in a 
 very repellent manner. Of course every 
 branch of knowledge has, and must have, its 
 own technical terms, but it would seem as if 
 the very spirit of evil - speaking had taken 
 possession of most metaphysicians, and as if 
 they had deliberately sought to make them- 
 selves as unintelligible as possible to the or- 
 dinary run of mankind. 
 
 Every science and each art has, as before 
 
12 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 said, its technical terms. The anatomist and 
 the lawyer respectively find it easier to 
 speak of the "fifth ventricle " or the "Cestui 
 que trust," than to denote such conceptions 
 by descriptive phrases in plain words. Nev- 
 ertheless, with a little circumlocution most 
 scientific statements could be made in or- 
 dinary language, and I believe that all phil- 
 osophical conceptions can be so expressed, if 
 only a little trouble is taken by writers on 
 the subject. At all events the present writer 
 thinks he can promise to at least make him- 
 self intelligible, and to refrain from the use 
 of bewildering words in treating of a matter 
 which readers will in the end; it is believed, 
 see to be, as before said, a very practical one. 
 
 But will the Soeratic method really suf- 
 fice? We cannot extract sunbeams from 
 cucumbers ! Can we draw forth philosophy 
 from clod-hoppers? 
 
 Some men we will even dare to say some 
 women are foolish, while others are excep- 
 tionally gifted ; but plain, ordinary reason is 
 possessed by the overwhelming majority of 
 men and women. Such ordinary reason, 
 
13 
 
 with a little patience and perseverance, are 
 all that is needed for a good insight into 
 " the helpful science." 
 
 For just as science is but ordinary reason 
 carefully and exactly applied to the exam- 
 ination of what surrounds us, so philosophy 
 is nothing but the same reason applied to 
 what is most fundamental in all the other 
 sciences on which account it may be called 
 " the science of sciences." 
 
 No educated man should rest satisfied 
 without trying to understand it, for other- 
 wise his knowledge, sufficient as it may be 
 for many purposes, must none the less be 
 without a solid, logical basis. There are 
 certain questions which underlie all physi- 
 cal science, and we are persuaded that not a 
 few of the readers of this volume will like 
 to see drawn out what those questions are, 
 and what are, therefore, the necessary foun- 
 dations of all our knowledge. I have spo- 
 ken of " educated men," but my experience 
 convinces me that a man may be a good 
 philosopher with very little education. In 
 considering the vulgar we are very apt to be 
 
14 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 misled by small matters which may strongly 
 impress the imagination, but which our judg- 
 ment, on reflection, must own to be trivial. 
 We are sometimes tempted to despise an 
 intellect which manifests itself only by un- 
 couth gestures and coarse speech, wherein 
 the rules both of correct pronunciation and 
 grammar are violated ; and yet that intellect 
 may be, in fact, quite as good as our own. 
 I have more than once been surprised, 'when 
 talking with peasants, to find how correct 
 was their appreciation even of questions of 
 philosophy, when once the difficulties aris- 
 ing simply from our different modes of ex- 
 pressing essentially similar ideas had been 
 surmounted. If this is the case with farm- 
 laborers, there must be plenty of uncon- 
 scious philosophers among the keen-witted 
 artisans of our large cities who take an in- 
 terest in deep questions. If, therefore, every 
 such man chooses to upbraid me with being 
 a " philosopher," I can without scruple re- 
 spond by a Tu quoque. For, in fact, every 
 sane man must, consciously or unconsciously, 
 have some system of philosophy whether 
 
AMERICAN TRAITS AND TENDENCIES 15 
 
 he will or no. But a reasonable man will 
 try and get as reasonable a view of things as 
 he can, and to such a man it will seem worth 
 while to spend a little time and take a little 
 trouble with respect to questions which con- 
 stitute the foundation of all his knowledge. 
 
 The present writer feels a great satisfac- 
 tion in addressing an American public on 
 such questions, because he not only knows 
 that education is highly prized and widely dif- 
 fused in the United States, but he also be- 
 lieves that in a nation where every form of 
 knowledge is eagerly sought after there must 
 be a vigorous appetite also for philosophy 
 as soon as its real nature is understood. In- 
 America there seems to be a strong desire 
 to get to the bottom of matters and to know 
 what things are, even though the how and 
 the wherefore of their being what they are 
 may remain inscrutable. There is a healthy 
 appetite for facts, with a remarkable absence 
 of prejudice and a hearty wish to be " thor- 
 ough." 
 
 But the helpful science does not alone 
 concern " knowing," but " doing " also. It is 
 
16 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 at the foundation of ethics and therefore of 
 conduct, and thus considered its claim on 
 the attention of the English-speaking races 
 is exceptionally great. For they have arrived 
 at a degree of self-government, accompanied 
 by a combination of order and freedom, which 
 has hitherto been unknown elsewhere. In 
 our race, then, it must evidently be a mat- 
 ter of the most extreme importance that 
 opinion should not be misled in matters 
 which touch so nearly the innermost springs 
 of morality and social life. It is supremely 
 important that there should be no doubt as 
 to the validity of those declarations of reason 
 upon which our moral perceptions and all 
 our social regulations ultimately depend. It 
 may be thought that metaphysical questions 
 concern the highly educated alone. But 
 this opinion is a very mistaken one, for met- 
 aphysical doctrines (it may be in crude forms) 
 soon filter down to, and have their full ef- 
 fect on, the lowest classes of society. In 
 some form or other they come home to al- 
 most every one. 
 
 There are few men indeed who have never 
 
LIFE'S PROBLEMS 17 
 
 thought about either their origin or their 
 destiny, or the wonderful mystery of life. 
 In hours of sadness and trial, when some 
 object, aimed at for years, is suddenly seen 
 to be hopelessly beyond reach ; when the 
 symptoms of a fatal disease first become 
 clearly recognized, or when we stand and 
 gaze on the marble features of our much- 
 
 o 
 
 loved dead, deep questions not seldom arise 
 in the sorrow-laden mind : What and whence 
 are we ? Why are we here ? What should 
 be our true end ? What is the real meaning, 
 what the good of life ? 
 
 Of course there are multitudes of men 
 who, save at such solemn moments, put such 
 questions on one side, and get into a habit 
 of going through life's daily tasks, taking 
 what pleasure they may on the road and as 
 much of it as they can get. But, at least, 
 the men and women who address themselves 
 to the perusal of an essay such as this are 
 not likely to be anxious to shirk all serious 
 questions, or indisposed to take a little trou- 
 ble if they see that such labor need not be 
 fruitless ; while they will know well that no 
 
18 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 good work can be done without taking some 
 trouble about it. 
 
 The task here undertaken is to show that 
 the helpful science of philosophy is not only 
 a basis and support absolutely necessary for 
 every physical science, but that it is no less, 
 as before said, the foundation of ethics and 
 of all right conduct. 
 
 Nevertheless no appeals will here be made 
 to sentiments and feelings, whether moral or 
 otherwise. Appeal will be made to the pure 
 intellect of readers and to nothing else. 
 And, indeed, I desire to take this opportu- 
 nity plainly to declare that not only here 
 and now, but everywhere and always, I un- 
 hesitatingly affirm that no system can or 
 should stand which is unable to justify 
 itself to reason. I possess no faculty myself, 
 nor do I believe that any human faculty ex- 
 ists, superior to the intellect, or which has any 
 claim to limit or dominate the intellect's ac- 
 tivity. Feelings and sentiments have their 
 undoubted charm and due place in human 
 life, but that place is a subordinate one, and 
 should be under the control of right reason. 
 
WHEN PHILOSOPHY WAS FASHIONABLE 19 
 
 Yet it is by no means only against those 
 who would undervalue reason for the sake of 
 sentiment that these lines are written ; their 
 object is to uphold the rights of our rational 
 nature against all who, from whatever side 
 or in the name of whatsoever authority, would 
 either impugn its sovereign claim upon our 
 reverence or would unduly restrict the area 
 of its sway. 
 
 Five hundred years ago the study of phi- 
 losophy was the intellectual fashion of the 
 day, and, as we before said, never were the 
 wits of mankind so well polished, never was 
 the intellect provided with a keener razor's 
 edge to use the best material metaphor 
 available. That it should go out of fashion 
 was, however, inevitable, since its professors 
 dealt too much in verbal subtleties while 
 neglecting to examine and experimentally 
 interrogate nature through the senses. Had 
 they paid more attention to the sagacious 
 warnings of Roger Bacon and to the ex- 
 ample of their great model, Aristotle, mod- 
 ern science might have attained its triumphs 
 by the aid of men who had never lost hold 
 
20 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 of many priceless philosophical truths. If 
 ever a man was " before his age " it was 
 Roger Bacon, who was not only the warm 
 advocate of experimental physical science, 
 but boldly maintained the true principles of 
 modern Biblical criticism. 
 
 Yet his warnings and protestations were 
 of no avail. His contemporaries believed 
 they knew all things knowable, and pos- 
 sessed in one or other of their multitudinous 
 pigeon-holes a solution of every possible 
 problem. 
 
 Thus a great opportunity was let slip, and 
 when that change in art and learning, the 
 Renascence, took place, most men turned 
 with a sense of relief to new-horn physical 
 science. Such of them as still pursued phi- 
 losophy, welcomed with avidity a new philo- 
 sophical departure by a scorner of the old 
 ways Descartes who, never having stud- 
 ied the older philosophy, naturally misunder- 
 stood it and therefore despised it. 
 
 As we before observed, the development 
 of natural science at the Renascence was 
 really an analogous recurrence of antecedent 
 
TWO NOTABLE DEFECTS 21 
 
 conditions ; that is, there was an analogy 
 between its spirit and the spirit of the age 
 of Aristotle. There were, nevertheless, of 
 course, immense differences between the 
 two ; but some such return to an antecedent 
 state of things was necessary for subsequent 
 human progress. 
 
 Since that day physical science has run 
 a long and prosperous course indeed. By the 
 multitude of problems it has set at rest it 
 has abundantly justified the questioning spir- 
 it which is the spirit of all science, and, as we 
 shall see, of philosophical science especially. 
 Nevertheless, physical science, however use- 
 ful and fascinating, has two notable defects. 
 The first is that it cannot answer the ques- 
 tions men most desire to know. It may aid 
 us in performing our duty, but can never tell 
 us why, or even that, we should perform it. 
 It can tell us the truth about many things, 
 but can tell us nothing about truth itself. 
 It can afford us good reasons for believing 
 various facts, but not the grounds on which 
 we should believe such reasons. It is essen- 
 tially superficial, and not fundamental. This 
 
22 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 is no cause why we should disesteem it, any 
 more than we should disesteem our baker, 
 because he does not know the most recon- 
 dite principles of biology ; or our butcher, 
 because he does not appreciate the bearing 
 of embryology on zoological classification. 
 The mode of explaining the universe most 
 popular with physicists is not regarded as 
 satisfactory by many men who feel very 
 deeply the problems of human life. The 
 picture of an infinite aggregate of minute 
 solid balls or microscopic ether whirlpools 
 carrying on a very complex dance, even 
 though intelligence be deemed an accom- 
 paniment to some of its more involved fig- 
 ures, is not satisfactory, even as a working 
 hypothesis, to the deeper thinkers among 
 us. But it is the multitude of shallow think- 
 ers who suffer on account of the second de- 
 fect of physical science. This second char- 
 acteristic is its tendency, by cheap and easy 
 appeals to the imagination, to stifle the 
 craving of the intellect to know all that can 
 be known of the wonderful universe which 
 on every side surrounds us. We are open- 
 
ANOTHER RENASCENCE LOOKED FOR 23 
 
 ly counselled to rest contented with " ap- 
 pearances" (phenomena), and to pass our 
 lives as the witnesses of what we know to 
 be but a phantasmagoria, without trying to 
 obtain what we are told we can never ob- 
 tain some knowledge of the painted screen, 
 the pigments, the lanterns and the actors 
 themselves (so to speak) which play off before 
 us the set of dissolving views, the relations 
 between which are all that physical science 
 professes, or even hopes, to be able to give 
 us any information about. There are now 
 many p.ersons, and I am among the number, 
 who think that the time has come for an- 
 other renascence a recurrence of conditions 
 analogous to those which existed before 
 physical science became the fashion of the 
 day. It is almost needless to say that the 
 present writer in no way wishes to restore 
 medievalism, even were such an undesirable 
 miracle possible. All he advocates is a re- 
 newed attention to principles and intellect- 
 ual perceptions which have for a long time 
 been too much lost sight of. He is con- 
 vinced that these require to be once more 
 
24 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 keenly and searchingly scrutinized in the 
 light which four centuries of patient and 
 laborious work of physical science have ob- 
 tained for us. 
 
 This first portion of our essay is, in fact, 
 a plea for attention to questions the pro- 
 found, though generally hidden, effects of 
 which on human life and progress have been 
 unduly unreasonably crowded out. 
 
 The time, it is believed, has arrived for 
 stimulating the spirit of inquiry in what is 
 for most of our contemporaries a new di- 
 rection. While carefully gathering up the 
 fruits obtained for us by physical science, 
 we must turn with earnestness and energy 
 to investigate the foundations of all science 
 and of all rational human activity of what- 
 ever kind. 
 
 Whoever would so investigate must never 
 rest satisfied with any assertion the truth of 
 which is not evident to his reason. He can- 
 not repose upon authority, but must see 
 clearly the truth of each step he takes in 
 reasoning ; otherwise the result cannot possi- 
 bly be a satisfactory one. He must see the 
 
NEED OF TAKING TROUBLE 25 
 
 truth as to each such step, and know that 
 he sees the truth of it. 
 
 This last necessity constitutes the diffi- 
 culty of the investigation for the great ma- 
 jority of men. We spoke of the need of 
 being willing " to take trouble," and the 
 "trouble" we referred to is the trouble a 
 man often feels when, for the first time, he 
 begins to examine into his own mind and 
 see what his different mental acts are. This 
 trouble is not to be avoided. Every kind 
 of work requires a proper handling of its 
 proper tools. We cannot cut down a tree 
 with a painter's brush, and we cannot un- 
 derstand the value of our different beliefs 
 and convictions save by looking into our 
 own minds and seeing what it is we think 
 and know, and what we are really certain 
 about. 
 
 The trouble which at first attends upon 
 this process of introspection is due to a 
 peculiarity of our organization. We are 
 spontaneously impelled to notice surround- 
 ing objects, to the apprehension of which 
 the mind applies itself with extreme facil- 
 
26 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 ity, but we are not so impelled to notice 
 our own various mental states. The child 
 soon learns much about things external to 
 it, but not till long afterwards does it be- 
 gin to pay attention to its own feelings and 
 thoughts ; yet the difficulty we may find in 
 turning the mind inward upon itself can 
 soon be overcome ; for the faculty of intro- 
 spection, like our other faculties, may be 
 strengthened by exercise, and all that is or- 
 dinarily needed to perfect it is patient per- 
 severance* 
 
 In examining the foundations of all sci- 
 ence our inquiry must be, " What is most 
 certain ?" As it is impossible for any of 
 us to look directly into any mind but his 
 own, this inquiry must take the form, " Of 
 what things am I most certain?" And this 
 question may be preceded by two others : 
 "Are we certain of anything?" and "Does 
 such a thing as certainty exist?" 
 
 Doubt and scepticism are not only legiti- 
 mate but necessary in science. These are 
 our safeguards against rash assent to prop- 
 ositions inadequately proved. They are 
 
CERTAINTY INCREASES AS SCIENCE ADVANCES 27 
 
 doubly necessary for the helpful science of 
 sciences, in studying which we, as before 
 said, should assent to nothing which is not 
 clearly and evidently true to our own minds. 
 Yet here, as elsewhere, there may be exag- 
 geration. It is possible to be so possessed 
 by the spirit of doubt as to forget the ex- 
 istence and legitimacy of certainty. 
 
 But, in the first place, we are all certain, 
 as before said, that science advances, and 
 it is obvious that such advance would be 
 impossible if we could not, by observations, 
 experiments, and inferences, become so cer- 
 tain with respect to some facts as to be 
 able to make them the starting-points for 
 fresh observations and inferences as to other 
 facts. Thus, as to the earth's daily revolu- 
 tion, the stratified composition of its crust, 
 and the fact that such strata here and there 
 contain the fossil relics of ancient forms of 
 life as to such things, educated men are 
 certain. No one will probably deny that 
 we may repose with absolute confidence and 
 entire certainty upon a variety of such asser- 
 tions. 
 
28 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 As to matters of every-day life as distin- 
 guished from scientific truths, though we 
 therein generally act on reasonable probabil- 
 ities, yet certainty meets us at every turn. 
 Thus we are absolutely certain that a door 
 must be closed or not closed ; that if having 
 been open it is now shut, some person or 
 thing must have closed it ; that we cannot 
 both spend our money and keep it ; that we 
 are warm or are enjoying a sweet taste 
 while we are so doing. Such certainty is 
 quite beyond the reach of doubt, and no 
 one denies that while we are actually expe- 
 riencing some kind of feeling, we absolutely 
 know and may be certain that we do feel it. 
 
 But it is necessary at the outset of our in- 
 quiry to take very special pains not to make 
 even such assertions hastily. Nevertheless, 
 every man of science must affirm that there 
 really is such a thing as legitimate certainty, 
 and that we are all certain of something ; 
 otherwise there would be no certain science 
 of any kind. Blind disbelief is as fatal to 
 science as blind belief, and it is possible 
 for men to get themselves into a diseased 
 
UNIVERSAL SCEPTICISM INDEFENSIBLE 29 
 
 condition of general distrust and uncertainty 
 to acquire a sort of mental falling -sick- 
 ness. Experience proves that they may 
 bring themselves to doubt or deny the 
 plainest truths, the evidence of their senses, 
 the reality of truth or virtue, and even their 
 own existence. It is necessary, thet\, dis- 
 tinctly to recognize that there is such a thing 
 as legitimate certainty, not to perceive the 
 force of which is illegitimate doubt. Such 
 doubt would, as just observed, necessarily 
 discredit all physical science. Universal 
 doubt is simply an absurdity it is scepti- 
 cism run mad. If a man doubts whether 
 there is such a thing as rational speech, or 
 whether words can be used twice over by 
 any two people in the same sense, then 
 plainly we cannot profitably argue with him. 
 But if, on account of his very absurdity, we 
 cannot refute him, it is no less plain that he 
 cannot defend his scepticism. Were he to 
 attempt so to do, then he would show, by 
 that very attempt, that he really had confi- 
 dence in reason and in language, however he 
 might verbally deny it. Universal scepti- 
 
30 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 cism is most foolish because it refutes itself. 
 If any one were to say " Nothing is certain," 
 he would necessarily contradict himself, for 
 he would thereby, in the very same breath, 
 say that " something is certain," since he says 
 " It is certain nothing is certain." He says, 
 therefore, something which, if true, absolute- 
 ly contradicts what he affirms. But a man 
 who affirms what the system he proposes 
 to adopt forbids him to affirm, and who de- 
 clares that he believes what he at the same 
 time declares to be unbelievable, should 
 hardly complain if he is called foolish. No 
 system can be true and no reasoning can be 
 valid which inevitably ends in absurdity. 
 Such scepticism, then, cannot be the mark of 
 an exceptionally intellectual mind, but of an 
 exceptionally foolish one, and every mental 
 attitude which necessarily leads to and re- 
 sults in scepticism of this sort, must be an 
 untenable attitude and a false intellectual 
 position. 
 
 Let us see a little further how self-refut- 
 ing such modes of thought are. Suppose a 
 man were to say, " I cannot be sure of any- 
 
ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY POSSIBLE 31 
 
 thing, because I cannot be certain that my 
 faculties are not always fallacious/' or " I 
 cannot be sure of anything, because for all I 
 know I may be the plaything of some demon 
 who amuses himself by constantly deceiving 
 me." In both these cases such a man would 
 simply contradict himself ; for how does he 
 know that " constantly fallacious faculties " 
 or "a demon deceiving in all things*' would 
 necessarily deprive him of certainty? Obvi- 
 ously he can only know this because he sees 
 that it is impossible to arrive at certain con- 
 clusions by means of anything uncertain or 
 false. But if he knows t/mt truth if he is 
 certain of that he must know that his fac- 
 ulties are not always fallacious and that his 
 demon has been unable to deceive him in 
 everything. Universal doubt, then, is man- 
 ifestly an absurdity. 
 
 My object in making these remarks is to 
 enable any of my readers who may need it 
 to get clear of such mere idle, irrational 
 doubts, and to recognize the fact that they 
 already possess an absolute certainty as to 
 some things. 
 
32 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 We possess mental faculties whereby we 
 can and do arrive at a knowledge of some 
 truth, and if any man professes to doubt or 
 deny their validity, we must be content to 
 pass him by, while calling his attention to 
 the fact that he refutes himself. It is clear, 
 then, that we all do know and are certain 
 about something, as, for example, those per- 
 sons who read these lines with a view to con- 
 sider the grounds of certainty may be certain 
 that they are inquiring about the certainty 
 of knowledge. 
 
 It being thus clear that we are, all of us, 
 certain about some things, let us see a little 
 more as to what some of them are, and why 
 we must be certain about them. What are 
 the grounds of our certainty ? 
 
 Various theories have been propounded on 
 this subject by a number of estimable per- 
 sons. Thus it has been said that we can by 
 reasoning attain to a solid support for all 
 our beliefs and convictions. But in order to 
 prove anything by reasoning, we must show 
 that it necessarily follows as a consequence 
 from other truths on the truth of which its 
 
SO-CALLED INDISPUTABLE PROPOSITIONS 33 
 
 own truth depends. Such other truths must, 
 therefore, be deemed more indisputable than 
 the thing they are called on to prove. But 
 it is evident that we cannot prove everything. 
 However long may be our arguments, we 
 must at last come to ultimate statements, 
 which must be taken for granted, as we must 
 take for granted the validity of the reason- 
 ing process itself. If we had to prove either 
 the validity of that process or such ultimate 
 statements, then either we must argue in a 
 circle or our process of proof must go on 
 forever without coming to a conclusion. In 
 other words, there would be no such thing as 
 proof at all. 
 
 It has, again, been said that indisputable 
 propositions are those which 1 have not been 
 impressed upon us by habit or by any asso- 
 ciation of ideas, but are what they call " the 
 genuine testimony of consciousness," such as 
 spontaneously arises in the dawning intelli- 
 gence of the infant mind. It is, to say the 
 least, somewhat difficult to see why such a 
 surprising keenness of mental vision should 
 be attributed to babies; but as such a test of 
 
34 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 truth is an utterly impracticable one and, like 
 the others here referred to (as we shall short- 
 ly see), not really to the point, no more need 
 here be said about it. 
 
 Some good persons, finally, lay it down as 
 our duty to select as the truest propositions 
 those which, not having been gained by 
 experience, are called a priori, and have 
 been implanted in our intelligence by a be- 
 nevolent and all-wise Creator. That a judg- 
 ment is " God -implanted" is a very good 
 reason for accepting it with those who al- 
 ready believe in " an all-wise and benevolent 
 Creator" ; but that the test is a practically 
 useless one is plainly shown by the number 
 of books which have been written to refute 
 persons who affirm that we have no sufficient 
 evidence of God's existence or, at least, of 
 his goodness. 
 
 Other persons deny that we can discover 
 any indisputable propositions at all, basing 
 their denial on the alleged fact that the 
 whole of our ideas are simply derived from 
 ancestral feelings of not only countless gen- 
 erations of mankind, but of an indefinite 
 
WHAT JUDGMENTS ARE CERTAIN 35 
 
 number of brute ancestors in addition. But 
 why are ideas and beliefs to be considered 
 less certain and ultimate if they are attained 
 by the help of such ancestral experiences 
 than if they are due to individual impulses? 
 In fact, one and the same objection must 
 be made to all these different representations. 
 The matters they refer to are very interest- 
 ing, but the problem we have to solve is one 
 entirely independent of them and has noth- 
 ing to do with the problem concerning the 
 origin of our judgments. Valuable as such 
 inquiries are for the study of the human 
 mind, they are quite out of place in an in- 
 quiry as to what judgments are evidently and 
 supremely certain. This last inquiry refers 
 to the grounds of belief which any judgment 
 may exhibit in and by itself to a criterion 
 of its truth and not at all to the causes 
 which have produced it. Yet there are phi- 
 losophers who have been so busy in try- 
 ing to find out how different propositions 
 have come to be believed that they have 
 neglected the more fundamental inquiry as 
 to why they should be believed what 
 
36 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 grounds of certainty they exhibit. By the 
 " grounds of certainty " which any judgment 
 can show, it is not, of course, meant any- 
 thing external to it. Such a meaning would 
 imply a proof of the judgment, and would 
 involve us in an endless and resultless series 
 of arguments, as already pointed out with re- 
 spect to reasoning. The only ground of cer- 
 tainty which an ultimate and supremely 
 certain judgment can possess is its own 
 internal self-evidence its own manifest cer- 
 tainty in and by itself. Such certainty we 
 possess when we recognize that we feel pain 
 or that we have a sensation of sound or a 
 taste of sweetness. It is manifestly as super- 
 fluous as impossible to try and prove such 
 things ; their evidence is direct and immedi- 
 ate, and whatever may be the origin and 
 causes of such perceptions, they manifest 
 their existence by their own internal evi- 
 dence. The slightest reflection will show 
 that it is impossible that we can be deceived 
 about having a feeling while it is being ab- 
 solutely felt. Similarly all proof, as all rea- 
 soning, must ultimately rest upon truths 
 
SELF-EVIDENCE NOT BLIND BELIEF 37 
 
 which carry with them their own evidence, 
 and do not therefore need proof. 
 
 But some readers may be startled at the 
 suggestion of believing anything on " its own 
 evidence," and may fancy it is equivalent to 
 a suggestion that they should believe some- 
 thing blindly. This startled feeling is, I be- 
 lieve, due to the circumstance that the great- 
 er part of our knowledge has been gained, 
 not by our own observation, but by testimony 
 or else by inference. 
 
 We ordinarily ask for some " proof " with 
 regard to any remarkable statement, espe- 
 cially if it be one which carries with it impor- 
 tant consequences. No truths are brought 
 home to our minds more forcibly than are 
 the truths of Euclid, and these have been 
 rigidly demonstrated to us by the clearest 
 reasoning. From such habitual connection 
 between (i) reasoning and (2) our apprehen- 
 sion of new truths, we have acquired a feel- 
 ing that to believe anything which cannot 
 be proved i-s to believe blindly, and have 
 therefore acquired a tendency to distrust 
 whatever may be above or beyond proof. 
 
38 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 We are too apt to forget, what, on reflec- 
 tion, is obvious enough, namely, that if it is 
 not blind credulity to believe what is evident 
 to us by means of something else, it must be 
 still less blind to believe that which is direct- 
 ly evident in and by itself. 
 
 The most certain of all judgments, then, 
 must be those which require no proof and 
 are self-evident. But is it within the bounds 
 of possibility that the most certain and ul- 
 timate truths could have any better criterion 
 or ground of belief than they in fact thus 
 have? 
 
 All criteria or tests of the truth of judg- 
 ments must be one of two kinds: 
 
 Every such test or criterion must either 
 (i) reside in the judgment or perception it- 
 self, and so make it luminously self-evident, 
 or it must (2) reside in something external to 
 it. Now any external criterion, however 
 striking and perfect it might be, could only 
 be appreciated by us through our perception 
 of it and our judgment about it. If a prop- 
 osition appeared suddenly written up on the 
 clouds or on the face of the full moon, we 
 
SELF-EVIDENCE THE ULTIMATE CRITERION 39 
 
 could not recognize such a proposition as 
 true until after having examined and care- 
 fully considered much evidence about it. 
 Our first impression would of course be that 
 we were the victims of an hallucination, and 
 then the question of the possibility of com- 
 mon hallucinations would have to be con- 
 sidered. Ultimately and at last, if the truth 
 of such a proposition were accepted, it could 
 only be accepted because we perceived that 
 our ultimate judgments about it were self- 
 evidently true. In fact, it would, for us, at 
 least, exclusively repose upon that very self- 
 evidence^ objections to which have been here 
 suggested. By no external criteria, then, 
 neither by such as the absurd one just imag- 
 ined nor by any other, could we be made 
 any better off than we now are. We could 
 but have self-evidence, after all, as our ulti- 
 mate criterion. It will be plain, on reflection, 
 that nothing external no common consent 
 of mankind, common -sense, or testimony 
 could ever take the place of an ultimate cri- 
 terion of knowledge, since some judgment 
 of our own mind must always decide for us 
 
40 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 with respect to the existence and value of 
 such criteria. Self-evidence, then, is the nec- 
 essary and the only criterion of truth. The 
 principle of evidence is one which is really 
 ultimate, and must be accepted under pain of 
 either futile reasoning or complete intellect- 
 ual paralysis. It is, however, necessarily in- 
 capable of demonstration, since it depends 
 on nothing else. We all of us assume it as a 
 criterion unconsciously, and it is confidently 
 acted on by every one who reasons. But 
 when we ponder over the matter it becomes 
 clear that what we have thus done, through 
 the spontaneous activity of our intellect, has 
 been done most reasonably. Did we not 
 adopt it, we should not only be utterly un- 
 able to think logically, but should be plunged 
 into the most utter and most absurd scepti- 
 cism. On the other hand, by recognizing 
 that criterion for what it must be and is, 
 we gain a secure foundation for our knowl- 
 edge and are enabled to make progress in 
 science. Our mental condition is trans- 
 formed from a hopeless chaos to an orderly 
 cosmos. 
 
THE TEST OF ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY 41 
 
 We end this preliminary part of the pres- 
 ent essay, then, by claiming to have shown 
 the attentive reader that his own mind al- 
 ready possesses absolute certainty about 
 some things, and that the declaration of his 
 intellect is that- things which are clearly 
 seen to be evident in and by themselves 
 possess the greatest certainty which it is 
 possible for the human mind to have. If 
 any one is so unfortunate as not to be able 
 to see this clearly and not to see that there 
 is such a thing as certainty with respect 
 to any matter, then he had better read no 
 further, and content himself with simple 
 matters, the toils and the pleasures of every- 
 day life, without a thought beyond. Fort- 
 unately it is not necessary to be a wise man 
 in order to be a good and useful one in plain 
 and simple ways of goodness and utility. 
 
 But for healthy, normally constituted 
 minds that can appreciate the necessary con- 
 ditions which appertain, for us, to all funda- 
 mental truth, it must be evident that we 
 need three things in order to enter upon the 
 investigation of the ultimate foundations of 
 
42 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 all physical science and all rules of conduct. 
 These three things are: (i) perceptions of 
 certain general principles, (2) perceptions of 
 certain facts, and (3) perceptions of the valid- 
 ity of certain arguments. Without a knowl- 
 edge of certain general truths we could not 
 argue, without a knowledge of certain facts 
 all our reasoning would merely concern ideas 
 and would have no relation to reality, and 
 without some criterion of valid reasoning we 
 could never arrive at any conclusion, and all 
 argument would be vain. Since, however, 
 men of all schools argue, it is plain they do 
 not think all argument vain, and it is no less 
 plain that they must accept some facts as 
 true and rely with confidence upon those 
 principles to which, in their arguments, they 
 make appeal. In the next part of this essay 
 we shall directly apply ourselves to consider 
 some of the truths which are implied and 
 confidently relied on by all followers of phys- 
 ical science. 
 
part 1T1T 
 
 THE object of the first part of this essay 
 was to bring home to its readers that certain 
 very practical questions have been unreason- 
 ably crowded out in that unconscious compe- 
 tition for the attention of mankind which 
 may be called " the struggle for life " of the 
 arts and 'sciences. 
 
 Considerations also were therein proffered 
 which seemed to prove that some correct 
 study of " the helpful science " is incumbent 
 on all who desire to lead a thoroughly well- 
 ordered and entirely reasonable life. 
 
 It was also pointed out that we all possess 
 absolute certainty about some things, and 
 that the result of self-questioning is to show 
 that nothing can be more certain than what- 
 ever is self-evident in and by itself. There- 
 fore, all sciences, together with all ethical 
 precepts, ultimately repose on certain truths 
 
44 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 seen to be evidently true an evidence than 
 which there can be no better. 
 
 The truth of whatever is true and the evi- 
 dence of whatever is evident can, of course, 
 only be made known to us as being clearly 
 true and evident by means of " thought"; as, 
 for example, when the reader of this page 
 turns his mind in upon himself and recog- 
 nizes what he is doing and that he knows it. 
 Not to be certain about such an evident 
 truth is to be in a mentally diseased and 
 more or less intellectually paralyzed con- 
 dition. 
 
 The author craves indulgence for such 
 seemingly trivial assertions, but it is not his 
 fault that he has to make them. The in- 
 genuity of successive metaphysicians, each 
 trying to be original and obtain renown by 
 some new absurdity, has made it necessary 
 for any writer who aspires to be helpful to 
 make very sure of the ground he proposes to 
 build on, and that every stone of the build- 
 ing he begins to erect should be firmly and 
 solidly set. 
 
 But here I may be met with the objection, 
 
WHAT IS THE ULTIMATE TEST OF CERTAINTY ? 45 
 
 " Your ground is not sure ; you represent all 
 truth as being known by means of 'thought' ; 
 but the railway I travelled by yesterday was 
 not ' a thought,' and the dinner I hope 
 shortly to partake of will, I trust, be made 
 of more substantial material. Thank God, I 
 have my senses about me, and I shrewdly 
 suspect that g I begin to feel sensations a 
 considerable time before I begin to think 
 about them. I abide by my experience ; I 
 know my feelings and sensations, and I am 
 much more inclined to regard all your fine 
 ' thoughts ' as really built up of them, than 
 to think the cramp in my leg which woke me 
 last night was ' a thought ' or an amalgam 
 of 4 thoughts.' I therefore demur to your 
 system altogether, and at the very outset." 
 
 There are not a few men who, like my sup- 
 posed opponent, would assign to our sensi- 
 tive faculty the dignity of acting as our su- 
 preme and ultimate test of reality and truth. 
 But the following considerations will, it is 
 believedj suffice to show that in this such 
 men are greatly mistaken. It is the intellect 
 which is alone supreme, and this not only in 
 
46 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 judging about abstract or mental matters, 
 but also in judging of matters of which the 
 senses take cognizance whether it be rail- 
 way trains, the courses of a well-ordered din- 
 ner, or anything else. 
 
 I am not one of those who doubt about the 
 real existence of an external world, or about 
 the certain information our senses can give us 
 concerning that world. Nor do I deny for 
 I confidently affirm that sensation precedes 
 thought, and that only after a long course of 
 sensations felt does the infant begin to think. 
 But, as pointed out in the first part of this es- 
 say, the question is not as to the mode of ori- 
 gin of the intellect's activity, but as to the 
 value of its declarations when mature. He 
 would not be a very wise man who in business 
 matters should doubt the accuracy of his calcu- 
 lations because he could not have made them 
 when he was a week old ! But even with re- 
 spect to the material objects about us which 
 can be submitted to the test of our sensitive 
 faculty, the last word, in all cases of doubt, 
 rests with the intellect and not with the 
 senses. Let us suppose that we are per- 
 
SENSATIONS AN AID TO JUDGMENT 47 
 
 forming some chemical experiments to find 
 out the properties of some newly discovered 
 compound. Since in such a case we appeal 
 directly to our senses for information, it 
 might seem that our ultimate criterion must 
 be our sensations, and that their declarations 
 must always be supreme. Yet in fact such 
 is not the case. The enormous value of our 
 sensations is manifest, as well as that the in- 
 formation we receive through them is indis- 
 pensable. Nevertheless, it is the judgment 
 of the perceiving mind which alone gives 
 them value, although its action ordinarily 
 takes place unnoticed. Let, however, some 
 distrust arise as to the results arrived at, 
 leading, perhaps, to a careful repetition of 
 experiments ; then, in the last resource, when 
 we have done observing and experimenting, 
 how do we know we have obtained the re- 
 sults we may have obtained, save by the in- 
 tellect ? How are we to judge between what 
 may seem to be the conflicting indications of 
 different sense-impressions ? Nothing could 
 be more foolish than to undervalue the testi- 
 mony of the senses, and the senses are truly 
 
48 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 a test and cause of certainty, but they are 
 not the test of it. Certainty is not in sensa- 
 tion, though sensation is so constantly our 
 means of acquiring it. Certainty belongs to 
 thought, and to thought only. Self - con- 
 scious, reflective thought, then, is our ulti- 
 mate and absolute criterion. It is by thought 
 only by the self-conscious intellect that 
 we know we have "feelings" at all. With- 
 out that we might indeed feel (since we often 
 come to know we have had feelings of which 
 we were at the time unconscious), but we 
 could not know that we felt. Our ultimate 
 court of appeal and supreme criterion is the 
 intellect, and not sense; our last appeal is 
 and must ever be to a perception or " intui- 
 tion " of the intellect. 
 
 But not only in such appeals to our own 
 mental experience is there a supremacy of 
 "thought" over "sense," but every one of 
 our perceptions be it of a dog or a dollar 
 contains what is altogether beyond sense. 
 To perceive a dog implies a perception of 
 " unity," and therefore of " number," of "ex- 
 istence," of " distinction " (as distinct from 
 
AND " INTELLECTUALS M 49 
 
 creatures not dogs), of " reality " (as not be- 
 ing a mere imagination), and of " truth." 
 
 The profoundly irrational system which 
 would feign persuade us that ideas are noth- 
 ing but sense-impressions received, associ- 
 ated, remembered, etc. and that our ultimate 
 appeal is to the senses, may be justly spoken 
 of as " Sensism" and its advocates as Sensists. 
 
 The opposite system, here vindicated, may 
 (since it recognizes the intellect as supreme 
 over sense) be rightly termed IntelUctualism, 
 and its vindicators as alike opposed to all 
 forms of materialism or idealism named In- 
 tellectualists. It is quite true that multitudes 
 of objects. of all kinds existed ages before our 
 intellectual activity began, but such things 
 were practically non-existent for us until our 
 intellect began to think about them, and so 
 furnish us with a basis for an incipient de- 
 gree of knowledge. We can feel, and origi- 
 nally did feel, without exercising our intellect. 
 But until such sensuous experience comes 
 within the grasp of the intellect comes to 
 be an object of our direct thought it cannot 
 constitute "knowledge." 
 
50 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 Space cannot be here afforded for any 
 lengthened demonstration of the essential 
 difference which exists between sensation 
 and thought. It must suffice to show, by 
 one or two more examples, how, by the help 
 of sensations, the mind can conceive of what 
 is altogether beyond sensation. Thus, for 
 example, we often refer to some past " ex- 
 perience," and the idea is a sufficiently fa- 
 miliar one. Yet that idea cannot possibly 
 be a faint reproduction of past feelings, for 
 " experience" is something which was never 
 felt at all. By receiving, or obtaining, over 
 and over again, feelings of the same or of 
 different kinds, we may find it easier to feel 
 them ; or they may become more pleasur- 
 able to us or (as is too often the case) less 
 so. But to undergo such changes of feeling, 
 and to obtain the idea " experience," are two 
 very different things. Again, we can all 
 form an idea of the action of our eyes in 
 seeing (our act of sight), yet that act of see- 
 ing was never itself felt, nor can the idea be 
 decomposed into mere feelings there is in- 
 finitely more contained within it. We may 
 
CERTAINTY WITHOUT FEELING 55 
 
 have a certain feeling in our eyeballs while 
 looking, but even if we could feel (which we 
 cannot) every minute action of every part of 
 the eye's and the brain's complex median-, 
 ism, such feelings would be no " idea of the 
 act of seeing." Among the constant expe- 
 riences of our daily life are our perception 
 of different shades of color, and different 
 feelings have gone along with them. Of 
 " color," however, we have never once had a 
 feeling, yet we have a clear idea of it, and 
 often speak thereof. 
 
 We have certainly another idea which was 
 never felt, and that is our idea of " nothing/' 
 or u nonentity." It is very certain that past 
 sensations can never account for //to con- 
 ception, which is, nevertheless, one com- 
 monly enough employed. How often do 
 we not hear such expressions as " It is 
 worth nothing," or " There is nothing 
 in it!" 
 
 So much for the fact that ideas have 
 an extension and validity beyond the do- 
 main of our mere sensitive faculty. Nev- 
 ertheless, I am far, indeed, from regard- 
 
52 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 ing ideas as everything which is " Ideal- 
 ism." 
 
 It is utterly impossible in the course of 
 this essay to enter upon any examination of 
 that system of thought which originated 
 with Bishop Berkeley, although I shall have 
 some words to say about it later on. A dis- 
 belief in even a doubt about the real, in- 
 dependent existence of the material world 
 is, in my eyes, a form of insanity. That, for 
 example, the numerical relations of things 
 the facts concerning their numbers (that, e.g., 
 oranges on a plate are three and not five) 
 are matters absolutely real and true in them- 
 selves, and are not dependent on my fac- 
 ulties or the thoughts and perceptions of 
 any other man, is, for me, unquestionable. 
 That the bodies about us are really ex- 
 tended that the quality extension is a real 
 one is also, for me, unquestionable. When 
 Dr. Johnson kicked a stone by way of refut- 
 ing idealism the action seemed absurd, and 
 has been long a subject of ridicule. For all 
 that, I strongly suspect that the existence of 
 a direct perception an intuition of the real 
 
THREE ORDERS OF TRUTH 53 
 
 extension of seemingly extended things was 
 the truth he intended to assert by that rough- 
 and-ready procedure. 
 
 But it is time to revert to the considera- 
 tion of some of those truths which are im- 
 plied, and confidently relied on, by all fol- 
 lowers of physical science a consideration 
 which it was said, at the conclusion of the 
 first part of this essay, should form the sub- 
 ject of its second part. 
 
 Those truths, as before pointed out, relate 
 to three orders of truth : (i) general princi- 
 ples, (2) particular facts, and (3) the process 
 of reasoning. 
 
 Now every reasonable man, and surely, 
 above all, every practical man, must need 
 some especially solid foundation as a start- 
 ing-point, and, therefore, I will select from 
 the second of the three foregoing categories 
 one special and particular fact as an absolute 
 starting-point in the investigation and justi- 
 fication of" the helpful science." 
 
 Let us suppose that certain definite ob- 
 servations and experiments have been car- 
 ried on such as those which have been per- 
 
54 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 formed by M. Dareste in order to find out 
 what physical deformities in the embryo of 
 the chick may be produced by certain excep- 
 tional modes of treatment of the egg. Now 
 there is one supremely important truth which 
 is implied in our certainty of the result of 
 any such experirrient, whatever that result 
 may be. Unless we can be sure that it was 
 we who both began the experiment and also 
 witnessed its conclusion that there had 
 been no change in our personality while ex- 
 perimenting such conclusion could not be 
 'confidently relied on by us. In other words, 
 the truth implied in every scientific experi- 
 ment is the certainty of our knowledge of 
 bur own continuous existence during its per- 
 formance. 
 
 But here some of my readers may very 
 naturally exclaim, " I am not going to waste 
 my time in reading assurances that I know 
 I exist. I am not an idiot !" And, indeed, 
 when some one is very sure about anything 
 he will often say, " I am as certain about it 
 as I am of my own existence." It is no 
 wonder-) then, that some persons should feel 
 
AS TO THE CERTAINTY OF OUR EXISTENCE 55 
 
 disinclined to consider reasonings about a 
 matter they have never doubted in the least, 
 even though they may know that others 
 have professed to doubt about it. " To 
 doubt one's knowledge of one's own exist- 
 ence," they may say, " is even more absurd 
 than to believe that one's limbs are made of 
 glass." Nevertheless, we once more beg our 
 readers to exercise yet a little patience still, 
 for the question is one of extreme impor- 
 tance. It is denied by all the modern fol- 
 lowers of Hume such as Herbert Spencer, 
 Huxley, Mill, Bain, etc. that we have, or 
 can have, supreme certainty about our own 
 existence. Such certainty, they say, we can 
 only have with respect to our actual present 
 feelings, or what they call " states of con- 
 sciousness." They do not, of course, deny 
 the certainty of the momentary feeling of 
 existence which any one may have ; what 
 they deny is that we can have any certainty 
 that our existence continues on, substantial- 
 ly the same, during all the various changes 
 of feeling we successively experience. 
 
 Such a " continuous self," it is affirmed, 
 
56 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 we can never know apart from our various 
 " feelings " or " states of consciousness." We 
 can never know our own self, they tell us, 
 unmodified ; that is, as existing what they 
 call absolutely, or, in other words, by itself. 
 Therefore, they argue, we can never know 
 our own existence with the greatest certainty 
 possible. 
 
 But, in fact, there is nothing we can per- 
 ceive which exists apart from everything 
 else or " absolutely " as it is, in my opinion, 
 very absurdly called. Everything which ex- 
 ists always exists in some state or condition, 
 and stands in some definite relation to other 
 things. Small wonder, then, if we do not 
 know things in a way in which they never 
 do and probably never can exist ; that is, 
 " unmodified " and " unrelated." We can 
 know nothing by itself, for the very good 
 reason that nothing exists " by itself." 
 Therefore, it is not at all wonderful if we 
 only know "ourselves" in connection with 
 our various " feelings," or vice versa. 
 
 It is quite true that we never knew our 
 own existing being, alone and unmodified ; 
 
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF OURSELVES 57 
 
 but then we have never for an instant so ex- 
 isted. Our knowledge of ourselves is, in this 
 respect, just like our knowledge of anybody 
 else. Probably some of our readers have 
 known the late highly distinguished bota- 
 nist Professor Asa Gray; yet, if so, they nev- 
 er knew him except in some " state " either 
 talking or silent, at home or away from 
 home, examining a plant or not examining 
 one, with his head covered or with it uncov- 
 ered and this for the very good and obvi- 
 ous reas.on that he never did, or could, exist 
 for one moment save in some "state." But 
 this need not have prevented Professor Asa 
 Gray from being very well known, and the 
 same consideration applies to our knowledge 
 of ourselves. If the reader will reflect, and 
 consider what is his primary, direct conscious- 
 ness at any moment, he will find it to be nei- 
 ther a consciousness of a " feeling" nor one 
 of " his continuous existence," but a con- 
 sciousness and perception of doing some- 
 thing (as, for example, reading this essay), 
 or else of having something done to him, by 
 some person or thing it may be being sup- 
 
58 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 ported by a chair on which he is sitting. 
 But this consciousness he will find to be al- 
 ways accompanied by some "feeling" or 
 other", and also by some " sense of his self- 
 existence." He (it may be he who reads 
 this) can, indeed, whenever he likes, make 
 himself explicitly aware either of his " feel- 
 ing " or his " sense of self-existence." 
 
 He can do this by turning back his mind 
 upon itself for that purpose, and then he will 
 be able to say to himself either, " I have the 
 feelings which attend holding and reading 
 a book on the helpful science," or he may 
 say to himself, " It is 7 who have these feel- 
 ings." But this is not a natural primary act, 
 but an act of reflection ; that is, a seconda- 
 ry act. No one, when he begins to think, 
 adverts either to his " present feelings " or 
 to his " continuous existence." No one be- 
 gins by perceiving his act of perception a bit 
 more than he begins by expressly advert- 
 ing to the fact that it is he himself who 
 perceives it. 
 
 It is only by reflecting on the direct spon- 
 taneous perception of the mind that we can 
 
PERCEPTION OF " FEELING " AND OF " SELF " 59 
 
 see (by such a reflex or secondary act) that 
 our perceptions and feelings are perceptions 
 and feelings, or that it is truly we who per- 
 ceive and feel. Let us suppose two men to 
 be engaged in a fencing-match. Each man, 
 while he is parrying, lunging, etc., has his 
 " feelings " or "states of consciousness " and 
 knows very well that it is he who is carrying 
 on the struggle. Yet it is neither his " state 
 of consciousness" nor "the persistence of his 
 being" which he directly regards. What 
 he directly regards is what he is doing and 
 what is being done to him in attack and de- 
 fence. He can, of course, if he likes, direct 
 his attention either to the feelings he is ex- 
 periencing or to his underlying continuous 
 personality. Should he do so, however, a 
 hit from his adversary's foil will be the prob- 
 able result. 
 
 But to become aware that one has any 
 definite " feeling " is an act of reflection at 
 least as secondary and posterior as it is to 
 become aware of the "self" which has the 
 " feeling." We say " at least," but I believe 
 that of the two perceptions (i) that of 
 
60 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 "feeling," and (2) that of "self" it is the 
 "self" which is the more prominently given 
 in our primary, direct cognitions. 
 
 I believe, nay, I am sure, in my own case, 
 that a more laborious act of mental digging 
 is needed to bring explicitly before the mind 
 the " feeling " implicitly contained in any 
 perception than to bring explicitly before 
 the mind the sense of " self-existence " im- 
 plicitly contained in any such supposed per- 
 ception. 
 
 Men continually and promptly advert to 
 the fact that actions and sufferings are their 
 own (they will quickly claim the merit of the 
 former, or cry out against the supposed un- 
 deservedness of the latter), but do not by 
 any means so continually and promptly ad- 
 vert to the fact that the feelings they expe- 
 rience are " existing feelings." 
 
 Therefore I am profoundly convinced that 
 one of the greatest and most fundamental 
 errors of eccentric writers and lecturers of 
 our own day is the mistake of supposing that 
 we can know our " mental states " or " feel- 
 ings" more certainly and directly than we 
 
DIRECT PERCEPTION 6l 
 
 can know the "continuously existing self" 
 which has those feelings. 
 
 To make my contention still plainer, let 
 us suppose that a man of ordinary suscepti- 
 bility has received a slap in the face. What 
 is his immediate, explicit perception ? Not 
 that a certain " state of consciousness " ex- 
 ists, nor that there is an " enduring self" 
 which has become newly modified. His di- 
 rect perception is that he has been struck, 
 and different " feelings " will accompany that 
 perception according to the circumstances 
 of the case. He may then, if he pleases, 
 either explicitly examine his " feelings," or 
 explicitly consider " himself "as affected by 
 what has occurred ; and in each case he will 
 by so doing hold up, as it were, to his mind's 
 eye the " feelings" and the " self," and re- 
 gard them by that second application of the 
 intellect which I have before termed " re- 
 flex." But he cannot so examine his " feel- 
 ings" without a perception that they are his 
 own; nor examine "himself" without a per- 
 ception of the more or less vivid " feelings " 
 which have just been aroused in him. 
 
62 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 I am at this very moment writing. I feel 
 the pen and I feel the motions of my hand 
 and arm. But ordinarily, when writing, I 
 no more advert to such "feelings" than I 
 advert to the feelings in and the movements 
 of my legs as I am running up-stairs. It is 
 plain that we do not so advert ; for as sure- 
 ly as our attention is so directed, our writing 
 movement is hampered in the one instance, 
 and a stumble on the staircase is very likely 
 to occur in the second. Much less inconve- 
 nience ensues from turning the mind inward 
 (while writing or running up-stairs), and rec- 
 ognizing the fact that it is we ourselves who 
 are in the act of doing either one or the 
 other of these things. Thus here, again, we 
 may recognize the fact that of the two cer- 
 tainties, the certainty of our own existence 
 is more easily attained than is the certainty 
 as to what the nature of the various feel- 
 ings which accompany the actions may be, 
 whether we are writing, running up-stairs, 
 or whatever we may be doing. 
 
 This truth is, I believe, the most impor- 
 tant and fundamental of all the truths our 
 
OUR OWN EXISTENCE A CERTAINTY 63 
 
 minds can give us any information about 
 not on its own account, but on account of 
 the consequences which follow its distinct 
 recognition. We have but to turn our minds 
 inward and advert to what our conscious- 
 ness tells us, in order to be able clearly to 
 see that the fact of our own existence is a 
 truth which carries with it its own evi- 
 dence, and is absolutely certain in and by 
 itself. 
 
 It is not, however, a momentary exist- 
 ence which it suffices for us to recognize. 
 If our experiments have (as supposed) been 
 directed to ascertain any kind of scientific 
 truth, it is evident that we must be sure that 
 our existence has persisted from the begin- 
 ning of such experiments till their conclu- 
 sion ; otherwise all scientific certainty, as 
 before observed, would be at an end. We 
 may be sure, then, that we can know not only 
 our actions, sensations, imaginations, remi- 
 niscences, emotions, perceptions, and concep- 
 tions, but also our own substantial and con- 
 tinuous personal existence. The fact that 
 we possess this knowledge, however, implies 
 
64 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 another most important truth, namely, the 
 validity of our faculty of memory. 
 
 And, indeed, this is necessarily implied in 
 the pursuit of physical science. We have 
 spoken of M. Dareste's experiments with 
 eggs, but it must be plain to every one that 
 no result could be arrived at, let such ex- 
 periments be ever so carefully performed, if 
 we could not trust our faculty of memory. 
 
 It is true, of course, that we may make 
 mistakes as to particular things, and defects 
 of memory, which occasionally occur, are 
 very various affecting only certain parts of 
 speech or other limited department of the 
 mind. But such exceptional phenomena do 
 not tell against the fact of the general 
 trustworthiness of memory. 
 
 It is also plain and obvious that the 
 trustworthiness of memory is implied in our 
 knowledge of our own existence, since we 
 could never know either what (i) our re- 
 cently experienced " feelings " or (2) our 
 " perceptions of self " have been, save by 
 the aid of memory. Therefore, the cer- 
 tainty we have as to the one or the other 
 
WHAT IS MEMORY? 65 
 
 of these, carries with it a certainty as to our 
 act of memory. 
 
 But what is memory? Evidently we can- 
 not be said to remember anything unless we 
 know that the thing we so remember has 
 been present to our mind on some previous 
 occasion. A mental image might present 
 itself to our imagination a hundred times, 
 but if each time that it so presented itself 
 it seemed to be something altogether new 
 and unconnected with the past, we could 
 not be said to remember it. It would rather 
 be an example of extreme forgetfulness than 
 of memory. 
 
 By asserting the general trustworthiness of 
 our faculty of memory we do not, as before 
 said, mean to deny that mistakes are often 
 made. Nevertheless we are all of us certain 
 as to some past events. Probably every 
 reader of this essay is absolutely certain that 
 he was doing something else before he began 
 to read it. Memory gives us as much cer- 
 tainty concerning some portions of the past 
 as we can have with respect to some por- 
 tions of the present. 
 
 5 
 
66 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 If we could not trust our faculty of mem- 
 ory all science would be, for us, a mere pres- 
 ent dream. But the veracity of this faculty 
 is a self-evident truth. It can never be 
 proved. There can be no such thing as a 
 proof of it, because we cannot argue at all 
 unless we already trust it. Yet, marvellous 
 to say, Professor Huxley has declared that 
 we may trust our memory because we learn 
 its trustworthiness by experience ! This dec- 
 laration amounts to a demonstration of the 
 Professor's incapacity in matters of philos- 
 ophy. Surely never was fallacy more glar- 
 ing ! How could we ever gain experience at 
 all, unless we trusted our memory in gain- 
 ing it? Professor Huxley has thus said, 
 in effect : " You may trust your present 
 memory because experience has confirmed 
 it, while you can only know that it has 
 confirmed it by trusting your present mem- 
 ory !" 
 
 Memory, as we shall see, directly performs 
 a yet more wonderful office than any I have 
 yet referred to. Before, however, stating 
 what it is, I think it well to explain the only 
 
" FACTS " AND " FEELINGS " 67 
 
 two technical terms of which I propose to 
 make use. 
 
 These two terms may be represented, to a 
 certain extent, by the familiar words, "facts" 
 and "feelings" The technical terms which 
 correspond therewith respectively are : (i) 
 things which are " objective" and (2) things 
 which are "subjective" 
 
 Every " feeling," " thought," " sensation," 
 or other " state of consciousness" present to 
 the mind of whoever is the subject of it, is 
 spoken of as being " subjective. 5 ' It is a 
 thing which pertains to the subject to the 
 mind which feels or thinks. The whole of 
 such experiences taken together constitute 
 the subjective world or the sphere of sub- 
 jectivity. 
 
 On the contrary, everything whatever 
 which exists externally to our present con- 
 sciousness or feelings, is spoken of as being 
 " objective," and all that is thus external to 
 the mind constitutes the objective world and 
 is the region of objectivity. 
 
 It is the world of real objects which occa- 
 sions thought or feeling, as opposed to the 
 
68 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 subjective modifications of him who thinks 
 or feels. 
 
 Everything which is subjective pertains to 
 the self or ego during the time in which that 
 " self " is feeling or thinking. 
 
 Everything which is objective is external 
 to the self which is feeling or thinking, so 
 that all states, even of the " self" or " ego," 
 which are anterior to the time when that 
 self or ego feels, is also objective an ob- 
 ject of thought, indeed, but not the thought 
 or feeling of the thinking subject not sub- 
 jective. 
 
 Now the wonderful office above spoken 
 of as being performed by memory concerns 
 this distinction between objectivity and sub- 
 jectivity, and is, in fact, the bridge which 
 exists, in our being, between the two. 
 
 It is memory which enables us to get, in- 
 tellectually, outside our present selves and 
 our present feelings and sensations, in a way 
 the truth of which no sane man can ques- 
 tion. 
 
 For memory informs us with absolute cer- 
 tainty as to some events of our own past 
 
POWER OF MEMORY 69 
 
 history. But such events are beyond our 
 present experience ; therefore they possess a 
 truth which extends back beyond any pres- 
 ent feeling. They are realities which are an- 
 terior to our existing feelings, and they are, 
 therefore, objective. 
 
 Thus memory, inasmuch as it reveals to 
 us part of our own past, reveals to us what 
 is " objective," and so actually introduces us 
 into the realm of objectivity, shows us more 
 or less of " objective " truth, and carries us, 
 as before said, into a real world, beyond the 
 range of our own present feelings. 
 
 The power which memory possesses of 
 thus lifting us, as it were, out of our present 
 selves, and showing us facts which otherwise 
 we could never know, is certainly a most 
 wonderful power ; and the plain fact that if 
 we admit the validity of memory in the least 
 if we can be certain of even one single 
 thing which took place only a few hours ago 
 it is indisputable that we can, and that we 
 do, learn real objective truth, and can be cer- 
 tain of more than mere " appearances," or 
 " our present feelings only." The fact that 
 
70 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 we can certainly know these two truths: 
 (i) that we can really know our own exist- 
 ence, and (2) be certain of some facts an- 
 terior to our present feelings, is a truth fruit- 
 ful in far-reaching consequences. The reader 
 may, perhaps, at first be disposed to consid- 
 er the two truths here pointed out as being 
 too obvious and trivial. But it would be a 
 great mistake so to consider them, as will be 
 plainly seen in the concluding portion of 
 this essay. They carry with them, indeed, 
 tremendous implications. 
 
 Such being the case, it will be well for the 
 student of "the helpful science" here to 
 pause a little and well consider these two 
 truths, so that he may see they are abso- 
 lutely certain ones, though necessarily inca- 
 pable of proof, while they carry with them 
 their own evidence. He may also reflect 
 that the real validity of all science hangs 
 upon them, although such dependence is 
 rarely adverted to. The veracity of our 
 faculty of memory, and our knowledge of 
 our own existence, are both implied in every 
 scientific observation which we regard as 
 
UNITING THE PAST WITH THE PRESENT 71 
 
 certain, and in every mercantile transaction 
 in which we have entire confidence. 
 
 We can know the result of such observa- 
 tions and experiments (as before said) and 
 we can carry on such mercantile transactions 
 only through memory, by the help of which 
 we are, each of us, enabled to unite the past 
 with the present and say "I am." These 
 two words have an immense significance for 
 any one who will carefully ponder over them. 
 They signify that he who utters them intel- 
 ligently recognizes certain past acts as his 
 own acts, and that a continuous unity (him- 
 self) has endured, essentially the same, for a 
 longer or shorter time and has had more or 
 less varied experiences. He who utters them 
 also thereby indicates that he has the power 
 of knowing at least one objective existence 
 which his senses cannot perceive. 
 
 Such must be the case, because our senses 
 can only feel what is present to them ; they 
 can never feel the past. The very fact of 
 our feeling anything shows, with absolute 
 certainty, that something is actually present 
 which occasions that feeling. But it is clear 
 
72 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 to every one that his intellect can, by the 
 help of memory, know with certainty some- 
 thing which is far from being present here 
 and now namely, some event of his past 
 life. Similarly he is enabled to perceive his 
 own continuous existence which is certain- 
 ly a thing which cannot be felt. 
 
 Our body can, of course, be felt as often as 
 we like, in different ways at once and as long 
 as we choose. Nevertheless, each time we 
 feel it we can but experience the present 
 feeling, and without memory and without 
 reflex acts of the intellect, we cannot know 
 that our body has, and has had, a continuous 
 and enduring existence. It can never be 
 " felt " as enduring, although by the aid of 
 repeated sensations it can be recognized by 
 our intelligence as enduring. But the intel- 
 lect, aided by memory, can know very well, 
 by itself, and directly, that it has an en- 
 during permanence, and that the thought 
 of the day before yesterday was its own 
 thought. It can know this with a degree of 
 certainty which it is impossible to attain to 
 with respect to anything else. To doubt the 
 
FACULTY OF MEMORY A VALID FACULTY 73 
 
 continuous existence of our body would be 
 absurd indeed and a sign of lunacy ; but to 
 doubt the continuous existence of the in- 
 tellect, while illuminated by memory as to 
 some of its past acts known with certainty, 
 would be infinitely more absurd still ! 
 
 This power of memory, however, is so won- 
 derful, and the consequences it carries with 
 it are so profound, that it is hardly surpris- 
 ing that some persons, in the interests of a 
 philosophical system essentially irrational 
 (as we shall see later on), should have at- 
 tempted to impugn its validity. But, as we 
 have seen, it is simply impossible for them 
 to do so without contradicting themselves 
 and committing intellectual suicide by falling 
 into a fatuous system of universal scepti- 
 cism. The self-evident truth that our fac- 
 ulty of memory is a valid faculty, is abso- 
 lutely necessary to the full recognition of 
 what is, for us, the first and most certain of 
 all facts, namely, the fact of our own exist- 
 ence. 
 
 If I have insisted on these truths with some 
 tediousness of iteration, it is because the 
 
74 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 whole of my future contention depends upon 
 them. My readers will, I trust, therefore 
 pardon me, as unless the certainty of what 
 is contended for in this second part of my 
 essay were made plain and indisputable, 
 " the helpful science " could never be estab- 
 lished. 
 
 The certainty of these two preliminary 
 " facts " being now clearly seen, we may next 
 proceed to consider one of the two other 
 things I before represented as constituting 
 the foundation of all science and art : (A) 
 " perceptions of certain general truths," and 
 (B) " perceptions of the validity of certain 
 arguments." 
 
 It may, perhaps, be better to begin with 
 the last-mentioned category and consider it 
 in relation to what we said in the first part 
 of this essay : the assertion that " the value 
 of science and the fact of its progress are un- 
 questionable." 
 
 Physical science, as we all know, advances 
 by means of careful observations and by ex- 
 periments. But, as we said also in the first 
 part of this essay, not only observations and 
 
PROCESS OF DEDUCTION 75 
 
 experiments are necessary, but inferences are 
 necessary also. It cannot get on without 
 them. Therefore the mere fact of scientific 
 progress suffices to show that we must place 
 confidence in the process of reasoning in 
 that peculiar perception of the mind which 
 we express by the word " therefore." When 
 we use that word we mean to express by it 
 that there is a truth, the certainty of which 
 is shown by the help of other things which 
 have been previously ascertained to be true, 
 and whose truth involves, and carries with 
 it, the truth of the thing they are called in to 
 prove. This is the process of deducing one 
 truth from other truths previously known. 
 It is the process of deduction, and every one 
 who reasons shows by so doing that he 
 thinks it possible to draw valid inferences, 
 and implies that he himself has confidence 
 in the principle of " deduction," and recog- 
 nizes the force of that unique word " there- 
 fore." He implies that there is at least one 
 truth the certainty of which is shown through 
 the help of facts or principles which them- 
 selves are known to be true. 
 
76 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 The process of deductive reasoning has 
 long been familiarly illustrated as follows : 
 
 All men are mortal (major premise). 
 
 Socrates is a man (minor premise). 
 
 Therefore Socrates is mortal (conclusion). 
 
 This form of reasoning (consisting of two 
 premises and a conclusion) is, as doubtless 
 all my readers well know, termed a " syllo- 
 gism." 
 
 Now it is sometimes objected to deductive 
 reasoning to the syllogism that it really 
 teaches us nothing new, all that is contained 
 in the conclusion being already contained in 
 the premises. Opponents of the syllogism 
 say: " Whoever has said ' all men are mortal,' 
 has thereby also already said that ' Socrates 
 is mortal.' The so - called ' conclusion ' is 
 therefore but a repetition of part of. the 
 major premise, 'all men are mortal.' Here 
 then we really have no inference at all, but 
 merely a restatement. We do not in truth 
 1 conclude' that ^ Socrates is mortal, but we 
 only say over again, with the mention of his 
 name, what was said before without the men- 
 tion of his name." 
 
IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE 77 
 
 I have wished to draw out this objection 
 to the syllogism as distinctly as possible, be- 
 cause most important consequences follow 
 from the acceptance or rejection of the valid- 
 ity of the deductive process. 
 
 There is really no force whatever in the 
 above objection. Such force as it may appear 
 to have simply arises from ignorance on the 
 part of the objector of the great difference 
 which exists between implicit and explicit 
 knowledge. To cause a knowledge which 
 we only possess "implicitly" to become 
 " explicitly" present to our minds, may often 
 be to practically give us a knowledge of 
 something of which before we had no avail- 
 able or conscious knowledge at all. 
 
 Let us suppose that a youth has learned 
 by heart the characters which respectively 
 distinguish the four classes of back -boned 
 animals beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes 
 but that he has seen and knows very little 
 about specimens of different kinds. It would 
 not be wonderful that such a youth should 
 take a porpoise to be a fish. But his teacher 
 might remind him that all creatures possess- 
 
78 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 ing certain characters of brain and heart were 
 beasts ; and he could thereby come to see 
 that the creature he took to be a fish must, 
 since it has those characters, be a beast. Re- 
 ferring again to the characters of the class 
 of beasts, he might further exclaim, " This 
 fish -like thing when alive must, as being 
 really a beast, have had warm blood." Of 
 course his conclusion would be quite right, 
 and so such inferences would have supplied 
 him with knowledge which he certainly did 
 not possess before. 
 
 So great indeed is the difference between 
 explicit and implicit knowledge that the lat- 
 ter may not deserve to be called real knowl- 
 edge at all. No one will be so absurd as to 
 affirm that a student who has merely learned 
 the axioms and definitions of Euclid has 
 thereby obtained such a real knowledge of 
 all the geometrical truths the work contains, 
 that he will fully understand all its proposi- 
 tions and theorems without having to study 
 them. Yet all the propositions, etc., of Eu- 
 clid are implicitly contained in the definitions 
 and axioms. Nevertheless, the student will 
 
A COMPLETE INDUCTION 79 
 
 have to go through many processes of infer- 
 ence by which these implicit truths may be 
 explicitly recognized by him before he can 
 be said to have any real knowledge of them. 
 
 Of course, in the very rare instances in 
 which the major premises express a truth 
 which has been arrived at by an examination 
 of every fact referred to in it a process 
 which is known as a " complete induction " 
 there is nothing implicit. 
 
 Thus if we knew, with absolute certainty, 
 that every man, woman, and child in some 
 Indian village was a leper, then to say that a 
 man came from that village would be equiv- 
 alent to saying explicitly that he was a leper ; 
 there would then be no evolution of an im- 
 plicit into an explicit truth. Such cases are, 
 however, most rare. No one can pretend to 
 know by examination that all the radii of a 
 circle are equal by a complete induction 
 by an examination of every existing circle. 
 Similarly, if we are shown a triangular figure 
 and are asked, " Are its angles equal to two 
 right angles?" we shall not be able at once 
 to answer the question by directly inspect- 
 
80 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 ing the figure. If, however, we already 
 knew that the angles of every triangle are 
 together equal to two right angles, then we 
 should be able at once to infer the truth, and 
 to say that in so far as the figure approx- 
 imated to an ideally perfect triangle would 
 its three angles approximate the two abso- 
 lutely perfect right angles. We should ar- 
 rive at this truth mediately, and reach the 
 conclusion by the help of major and minor 
 premises. A very great part of the knowl- 
 edge we acquire throughout our whole lives 
 is acquired in this indirect way by the help 
 of that mental process which is expressed by 
 the word " therefore." 
 
 But we have no special reason to be proud 
 of that word, since it implies that we are 
 compelled to get at truth by a very round- 
 about process. Were our intellect of a much 
 higher order, it is conceivable that we might 
 be able to see equally well, and at the same 
 time, all those truths which a proposition 
 may contain implicitly as well as explic- 
 itly. In that case, of course, we should be 
 saved the trouble of any process of infer- 
 
TRUTH BY MEANS OF LOGIC 8 1 
 
 ence. The truths we now have to gather 
 indirectly would then be directly evident to 
 us, just as our own actual mental activity is 
 evident to us. Having, however, the imper- 
 fect nature we have, we must be content with 
 the more laborious, though practically suffi- 
 cient, process of inference or reasoning. We 
 must be content to gain actual knowledge 
 from implicit truth by placing propositions 
 side by side, and so evolving explicit truth 
 by such process properly performed. To 
 see to the proper performance of this proc- 
 ess is the task of logic, which is at once a 
 science and an art. It is a science, in so far 
 as it reveals to us the laws which regulate 
 human thought; it is an art, in so far as it 
 teaches us how to proceed in order that our 
 inferences may be valid and true. 
 
 Reasoning, then, is an indirect process of 
 attaining truths, and one which, when proper- 
 ly carried out, we may entirely trust. Nev- 
 ertheless, we can already see that it is not 
 the highest kind of act of which our intellect 
 is capable. Such highest act is that by 
 which we perceive or intue truth directly 
 
82 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 and without adventitious aid. We perceive 
 such a truth in the direct perception of our 
 own activity, and in our apprehension of 
 those principles and necessary truths which 
 will occupy us in the next portion of this 
 essay. 
 
 The three subjects which have here occu- 
 pied us (i) our perception of our own exist- 
 ence, (2) the validity of the faculty of mem- 
 ory, and (3) that of the process of inference 
 are alike truths incapable of proof, and ones 
 which carry with them their own evidence. 
 If any one were to deny that the process of 
 inference is a valid process, he would be land- 
 ed in absolute scepticism, and would there- 
 fore commit intellectual suicide. For if that 
 process be worthless, then all argument must 
 be useless and vain. More than this: not 
 only must all reasoning addressed to oth- 
 ers be vain, but the silent reasoning of each 
 man's own mind must be vain also. But 
 this amounts to an utter 'paralysis of the in- 
 tellect. It is, indeed, as we said before, scep- 
 ticism run mad. 
 
 In conclusion, I would invite my readers 
 
METAPHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE 83 
 
 to note that, in recognizing each of these 
 three truths (our mental continuity, the trust- 
 worthiness of memory, and the validity of 
 reasoning) we have passed beyond what is 
 to be perceived by our senses beyond things 
 physical. We have thus, without', I hope, 
 any undue strain upon my readers' minds, 
 distinctly entered the domain of ultra phys- 
 ical truth, or metaphysical knowledge. Such 
 knowledge, unnoticed though it be, lies at 
 the root of all that is either " good " or 
 "true" in human life. 
 
part H1Tf 
 
 IN commencing this third part of my es- 
 say on the Helpful Science, it may be well 
 to address a few words to any of my read- 
 ers who may feel some disappointment at 
 not having as yet found some or other help 
 they may have hoped to find in it. Of 
 such I would ask a little further patience, 
 and beg them to reflect that no struct- 
 ure can be safely reared save on a founda- 
 tion firm enough to uphold it. We have 
 in the last part laid three solid foundation- 
 stones, and we must lay yet two more 
 before we can begin any solid work of con- 
 struction. 
 
 I would also beg such readers to note 
 that though at first starting they may not 
 have felt the slightest doubt about their 
 own existence, the general trustworthiness 
 of memory, or the possibility of arguing 
 
REAL HELPFULNESS OF METAPHYSICS 85 
 
 logically, they may now possess not only 
 a full and explicit certainty about these 
 truths, but also a knowledge, by reflexion, 
 that they can and do possess it ; as, also, 
 that these are fundamental verities carrying 
 their own evidence with them an evidence 
 than which none can even be conceived 
 of as more satisfactory and certain. There 
 is yet another truth which we shall here- 
 after see to carry important consequences 
 with it, and that is our recognition that we 
 are beings possessing intellects capable of 
 pondering about such verities and seeing 
 the absolute certainty of them. But, in- 
 deed, we are already in a position to appre- 
 ciate, to some extent, the real helpfulness 
 of the helpful science of metaphysics; for 
 we have seen that it is the implicit knowl- 
 edge of the three metaphysical certainties 
 (to the establishment of which the second 
 part of this essay was devoted) which has 
 alone rendered the progress of physical sci- 
 ence a possibility. The utility of an agent 
 does not necessarily depend on the recog- 
 nition of that agent's utility, and still less 
 
86 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 on the causes which have made it useful. 
 Atmospheric and marine currents carried on 
 their various agencies, so helpful to human 
 life, for ages before their utility was recog- 
 nized, and, a fortiori, before the causes which 
 produced them were satisfactorily elucidat- 
 ed. Therefore, the title of " the Helpful 
 Science " would none the less be truly and 
 really merited by metaphysics, even did the 
 implicit truths, unconsciously embodied and 
 latent in every form of science, never reveal 
 themselves explicitly to any one for what 
 they really are and what we are now recog- 
 nizing them to be. 
 
 But in the last part of this essay its help- 
 fulness will be much more fully revealed and 
 made so evident that denial will be impos- 
 sible save to those who either wilfully shut 
 their mental eyes, or are unhappily unable 
 even to open them. 
 
 One of the most important distinctions 
 pointed out in the last part of this essay 
 was the distinction between what is objective 
 and what is subjective ; and one of the most 
 important facts therein put forward was 
 
TRUTH OBTAINED BY EXPERIMENT 87 
 
 the fact that, by the aid of memory, we can 
 obtain entrance into the domain of objec- 
 tivity, and know real existences external to 
 our present feelings and imaginations. 
 
 Bearing this supremely important distinc- 
 tion and this fact in mind, let us advance 
 further, and lay the fourth foundation-stone 
 for the great temple of human science be- 
 ginning with the recognition of some very 
 simple facts. 
 
 Physical science is emphatically experi- 
 mental science. But every experiment, care- 
 fully performed, implies a most important 
 truth, though it is so obvious a one that 
 nobody would usually pay the slightest at- 
 tention to it. Let us suppose that the ex- 
 periment of cutting off a newt's leg has been 
 performed in order to see whether it will 
 grow again, and let us further suppose that 
 it has grown again as, in fact, it will grow 
 again. This experiment will have demon- 
 strated to us the certainty that such a thing 
 is possible, because, in fact, it has actually 
 occurred. But that very certainty implies 
 a prior and much more important truth.- 
 
88 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 It implies the truth that if the newt has 
 come to have four legs once more, it cannot 
 at the very same time have still only three 
 legs. This may appear to some of my read- 
 ers to be altogether too trivial a remark. 
 But there is nothing like a concrete ex- 
 ample for making an abstract truth plain. 
 Besides, it is almost impossible in such 
 inquiries as these (metaphysical or philo- 
 sophical inquiries) to be too careful in mak- 
 ing each step as we go along plain, certain, 
 and unquestionable. Therefore, it will not 
 be superfluous here to distinctly note the 
 fact that whatever it may be which we have 
 become certain about because it has been 
 proved to us by experiment, is only thus 
 certain because we know that when a thing 
 has been actually proved, it cannot at the 
 same time remain unproven. If we reflect 
 again on this proposition, we shall see that 
 it depends on a still more fundamental truth 
 which our reason recognizes the truth, name- 
 ly, that " nothing can at the same time both 
 be and not be " the truth known as " the law 
 of contradiction" This again, like the three 
 
THE LAW OF CONTRADICTION 89 
 
 certainties laid down in Part II., is a truth 
 which carries with it its own evidence, and 
 is incapable of proof. That such is the case 
 a very little reflection will show. We con- 
 stantly act upon it in daily life without ad- 
 verting to it. The simplest rustic knows 
 that if his wages have been paid to him they 
 are no longer owing, and that if he has put 
 his cart-horse in the stable it can no longer 
 remain between the shafts. Yet the "law 
 of contradiction" is but the summing up in 
 an abstract .form of a multitude of particu- 
 lar instances of this kind, as to each one of 
 which no doubt is, or can be for a moment, 
 seriously entertained by any sane mind. 
 
 If we were really to doubt about the law 
 of contradiction we should thereby be landed 
 in absolute scepticism-, which we have seen 
 to be mere folly, because all certainty would 
 be thereby destroyed ; for, if -anything can at 
 the same time both be and not be, then 
 nothing can be true without its being possi- 
 ble for it also to be untrue, and this amounts 
 to a veritable paralysis of the intellect, reduc- 
 ing us to mental impotency. 
 
go THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 The excessive folly implied in any doubt 
 of the objective validity of the law of con- 
 tradiction has been so well shown by an at- 
 tempt on the part of a Mr. E. T. Dixon to 
 impugn its truth, that I think I cannot do 
 better than here call attention to it. Mr. 
 Dixon affirmed :* " If any one chooses to 
 say a thing both ' is' and ' is not,' there is no 
 law against his doing so, only if he does so 
 he is not talking the Queen's English." To 
 which I replied : " By so doing he breaks the 
 law of reason, if not the law of the land ; 
 and, indeed, to act on such a principle when 
 on oath in a court of law might have incon- 
 venient consequences." To a verbal quib- 
 ble about the word " to be," I replied: "Let 
 us avoid the use of the terms ' is ' and ' is 
 not '; they are not necessary. Does Mr. 
 Dixon really doubt whether if he had lost 
 an eye he would still remain, after that loss, 
 in the very same condition he was in before ? 
 If any one does not see the objective im- 
 
 * See Correspondence in. Nature, from December 10, 
 1891, to February II, 1892. 
 
A LAW OF "THINGS" 91 
 
 possibility of such a thing everywhere and 
 every when i. e., if he does not apprehend 
 the application of the law of contradiction 
 then he either does not understand the ques- 
 tion, or his mental condition is pathological." 
 The implications of science are really there- 
 in implied. Men may pretend to doubt 
 them, their own existence, or the objectivity 
 of mathematical truths. But their practice 
 demonstrates their unfailing confidence in 
 them on each occasion ats it arises -as when 
 cheated by false accounts, personally injured, 
 or engaged in scientific research. When we 
 enter the laboratory, we leave such follies 
 outside. That nothing can simultaneously 
 be existent and non-existent does not at all 
 depend on the words employed to denote 
 that truth, but is a law of " things." It 
 would not lose its validity and objective 
 truth, not only if there were no such things 
 as " words" at all, but it would not lose it if 
 the whole human race came to an end. 
 
 If any one who sees that the loss of an 
 eye would modify his state of being here 
 and now, does not also see that such a truth 
 
92 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 must also apply everywhere and everywhen 
 as before said then his faculty of mental 
 vision is one I do not envy. 
 
 For if we think of what the condition of 
 things must have been a long time ago in 
 the days of Julius Caesar, or when palaeo- 
 lithic implements were first fashioned we 
 shall see that the law of contradiction is as 
 sure and certain with respect to the past as 
 it is with respect to the present. We do 
 not " think ," we actually " know" with "cer- 
 tainty" that had Julius Caesar been drowned 
 off the coast of England he could not 
 also have been assassinated by Brutus in 
 the Roman Senate ; and that if an early 
 palaeolithic flint man was holding a flint in 
 his hand he could not at the very same time 
 have had both his hands empty. The same 
 certainty exists as to the most distant re- 
 gions. We are quite sure that the moon's sur- 
 face cannot be both irregular and absolutely 
 smooth ; and that the spectrum of a remote 
 star, which shows certain definite lines, can- 
 not, at the same time, be devoid of them. 
 Such assertions may well seem utterly su- 
 
LAW OF CONTRADICTION A UNIVERSAL TRUTH 93 
 
 perfluous, yet the existence of men like Mr. 
 E. T. Dixon shows that they are not so, but 
 require to be distinctly noted. 
 
 When they have been noted and pondered 
 over, then reflection reveals to us that this 
 law of contradiction is not only implied by 
 every physical science, and necessary to the 
 validity of all our knowledge, but that it is 
 an absolutely necessary and universal truth, 
 which carries with it its own evidence. 
 
 But here, again, one or two of my readers 
 may be startled by the words " absolutely 
 necessary " and " universal." They may feel 
 some vague doubt as to how this matter 
 may be in the Dog-star now, or how it may 
 have been long ages before our nebula was 
 churned into worlds supposing the solar 
 system did so arise. I may be asked, " How 
 is it possible that we men, mere insect's, as 
 it were, of a day, inhabiting a fleeting atom 
 in an obscure corner of the universe, can 
 know that anything is and must be abso- 
 lutely true for all regions and the most dis- 
 tant ages?" 
 
 Yet, in fact, we know much more than 
 
94 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 even this. We, poor and feeble creatures 
 as we are, are endowed with power to see 
 necessary limits to the action even of Om- 
 nipotence itself. For, let the reader first 
 suppose that Omnipotence might have 
 made our world such as it is, save that all 
 coniferous trees were excluded from it. 
 Then let the reader suppose that Omnipo- 
 tence might have made our world such as it 
 is, save that all its trees were conifers. The 
 reader will then see that it is, and must eter- 
 nally be, and have ever been, absolutely im- 
 possible even for Omnipotence to have made 
 both these possible states of our world simul- 
 taneously actual. Having reflected on this 
 simple but evident truth, he will be Jess dis- 
 posed to doubt his powers of perception 
 with respect to truths of a lower and more 
 ordinary kind. It is necessary, indeed, to 
 be careful not to declare anything to be cer- 
 tain till it has been seen to be clearly and 
 indubitably true, but it is no less necessary 
 that we should not shrink from declaring 
 that to be true the certainty of which is 
 evident to our minds, however wonderful it 
 
THE HABITS OF THE MIND 95 
 
 may be, and however inexplicable is the fact 
 of our knowledge of it. We are able to ex- 
 plain how it is we know many things, and as 
 time elapses we may come to explain our 
 knowledge of very many more. But how 
 we knoiv primary and fundamental truths, 
 which are self-evident and necessarily inca- 
 pable of proof, must ever remain for us en- 
 tirely inexplicable. Were they explicable, 
 they could not be ultimate. 
 
 I think that this feeling of distrust as to 
 our power of knowing absolute and univer- 
 sal truths is due to a second habit of mind 
 which most persons have formed, and which 
 runs parallel to the other mental habit which 
 we before noted as having given rise to a 
 prejudice against believing anything "on its 
 own evidence." This second habit of mind 
 has been formed as follows : Things which 
 are very distant, or which happened a long 
 time ago, are known to us only in round- 
 about ways, and we often feel more or less 
 want of certainty with respect to them. On 
 the other hand, we have a practical certain- 
 ty about the circumstances and conditions 
 
Q6 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 which surround us at the present time. Thus 
 we have come to associate a feeling of un- 
 certainty with statements concerning things 
 which are very remote. But nothing can 
 well be more remote for us than the Dog- 
 star, or time before the formation of the so- 
 lar system. It is not then, after all, so sur- 
 prising that this vague distrust should at 
 first exist with respect to our knowledge of 
 truths as being absolutely necessary and uni- 
 versal. 
 
 It is no doubt wonderful that we should 
 be able to know any necessary and universal 
 truths ; but it will be seen to be less excep- 
 tionally wonderful if it be well considered 
 in relation to our other active powers. It 
 is wonderful : but then, deeply considered, 
 so is every other atom of our knowledge. It 
 is wonderful that surrounding bodies should 
 be able to excite feelings within us such as 
 sensations of musical tones, sweetness, blue- 
 ness, or what not. It is wonderful that, 
 through sensations actual and remembered, 
 we have perceptions of the various objects 
 we from time to time perceive. It is won- 
 
THE MYSTERY OF SENSATION 97 
 
 derful that, on the occurrence of certain per- 
 ceptions, we recognize our own existence 
 .past and present. So, also, it is wonderful 
 that we recognize that what we know is 
 cannot at the same time not be. The fact 
 is so, and we perceive it to be so ; we know 
 things, and we know that we know them. 
 But how we know them is a mystery indeed, 
 and one about which it is, I think, perfectly 
 idle to speculate. It is precisely parallel to 
 the mystery of sensation. We feel things 
 savory, or odorous, or brilliant, or melodious, 
 as the case may be, and, with the aid of the 
 scalpel and the microscope, we may investi- 
 gate the material conditions of such sensa- 
 tions. But how such conditions can give 
 rise to the feelings themselves is a mys- 
 tery which defies our utmost efforts to pen- 
 etrate. I make no pretension to be able to 
 throw any light upon the problem " How is 
 knowledge possible ?" any more than on the 
 problem " How is sensation possible?" or oh 
 the questions " How is life possible ?" or 
 " How is extension^ possible?" But, Igno- 
 rantia modi non tollit certitudinemjacti; 
 
 7 
 
98 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 and we know that we are living, that we feel, 
 and that we do know something if only that 
 we know we doubt about the certainty of 
 knowledge. 
 
 If we deny or doubt the " law of contradic- 
 tion," we fall, as before said, into the unut- 
 terable absurdity of absolute scepticism, and 
 we are thereby forced to admit that law's 
 universal validity. But it is no mere law of 
 our own minds, for if we are to listen to what 
 our reason affirms to be evident, it is also a 
 law which applies to things to all things, 
 from metals and other minerals to mental 
 states. Such is the case, since we have seen 
 it so declares with respect to the various in- 
 stances we selected as examples. When we 
 say that the number of oranges in a bag cannot 
 at the same time be both " odd " and " even," 
 we are certain that this is not a truth due 
 to our organization, but to the real necessary 
 conditions of existence of the oranges them- 
 selves. Our reason declares that the law of 
 contradiction is no "form of thought " im- 
 posed on our intellect, but objectively cer- 
 tain, independent of our intellect. 
 
VALIDITY OF THE LAW OF CONTRADICTION 99 
 
 To doubt this, then, would be to destroy 
 the certainty of that which is the most evi- 
 dent to us of all propositions. It is thus a 
 fundamental truth, upon which not only all 
 reasoning depends, but which applies to ev- 
 erything which exists; since we see clearly 
 that even a Supreme and Omnipotent Being 
 could not however different the existence 
 of such a Being may be from our own both 
 exist and be non-existent, any more than such 
 a being could cause one of the stars to be, 
 simultaneously, both entire and divided into 
 two separate halves. 
 
 Our perception, therefore, of the necessary 
 validity of the law of contradiction teaches 
 us both an absolute verity with respect 
 to objective, external existences, as well as 
 the existence of our own mental perception 
 thereof: e. g., that two things cannot be 
 four things, and that we see such to be the 
 case. This double perception (as to facts 
 and thoughts) leads to the consideration of 
 the last matter which it is here proposed to 
 treat as fundamental. This matter is the an- 
 swer to Pilate's question, " What is truth ?" 
 
100 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 It has been sometimes said that "truth 
 is what each man troweth, and no more." 
 But no rational man could seriously so af- 
 firm, since by so doing he would really refute 
 himself like the sceptic in declaring " noth- 
 ing is true." For if truth were subjective 
 only, that very condition would be a " fact," 
 and every "fact" is something "objective" 
 more than an individual fancy. Therefore, 
 if any one should say, " It is a fact that truth is 
 merely an individual fancy," he would there- 
 by affirm, " truth is merely an individual fan- 
 cy and not merely an individual fancy," and 
 so must explicitly refute himself. Putting 
 aside such follies, it is evident that no man 
 of science can reasonably doubt that truth is 
 more than a mere quality recognized as be- 
 longing to a judgment by him who emits it. 
 He must be sure it has a real relation to ex- 
 ternal things, or else his science could make 
 no progress. We do not base scientific in- 
 ductions and deductions on our knowledge 
 of beliefs, but on our knowledge of facts ; 
 and, without a foundation of facts, beliefs are 
 worthless. The truth of physical science con- 
 
WHAT IS TRUTH? 101 
 
 sists in the agreement of " thought " with 
 " things " ; of the world of " beliefs " with the 
 world of " external existences." Thus, if we 
 state that " terrapins are toothless," we there- 
 by affirm not only a correspondence between 
 our subjective conceptions of " terrapins " and 
 " toothlessness " and the objective realities 
 the real reptiles and their edentulous condi- 
 tion of jaw but also a correspondence be- 
 tween our subjective judgment in making 
 the statement and the objective coexistence 
 of the "terrapins" and the condition we term 
 "toothlessness." Truth, then, cannot be 
 only "what each man troweth," but must 
 be what a man troweth when he troweth in 
 conformity with real external coexistences 
 and sequences, and with the causes and condi- 
 tions of the world about him. Truth, there- 
 fore, is, and must be, both subjective and ob- 
 jective. It is subjective regarded as a quality 
 of any Judgment of our own. It is objective 
 as a quality of the judgments of any one else 
 and every one's judgments are objective save 
 to the individual who so judges. The sim- 
 ple, but fundamental, truths to which atten- 
 
102 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 tion has here been called as being truths 
 present, if unobserved, in the mind of every 
 rational man have most important and far- 
 reaching consequences, and therefore merit 
 the attention of every one who desires to be 
 able to give a rational account of the con- 
 victions of his own mind. They are truths 
 which are latent in every branch of physical 
 science, and any real doubt about them would 
 make not only experiment, but even observa- 
 tion, logically impossible. 
 
 And now we may advance to the first 
 practical application of the various consider- 
 ations which have been here urged, and may 
 begin to build upon the foundations (of all 
 our actual or possible knowledge) which we 
 have here endeavored to lay namely: (i) the 
 fact of our knowledge of our own contin- 
 uous existence and our successive states of 
 consciousness revealed to us by memory ; (2) 
 the general principle termed the law of con- 
 tradiction ; and (3) the possibility of valid 
 reasoning. 
 
 Knowledge is valuable for its own sake; 
 the mind feels a natural and legitimate sat- 
 
IMPORTANCE OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE 103 
 
 isfaction in its acquisition as well as pleas- 
 ure in its pursuit, and the pursuit of science 
 may be its own abundantly great reward. 
 Nevertheless, knowledge is for most of us 
 largely esteemed as a means to guide us to 
 useful and reasonable action, and our actions 
 are certainly guided by our knowledge, as 
 well as by our sentiments and feelings. 
 Therefore, the more thorough and well- 
 grounded our knowledge, the better must 
 we be qualified for action; and this especially 
 applies to our knowledge of ourselves. That 
 knowledge, then, must be exceptionally help- 
 ful which best informs us respecting our own 
 nature and our own powers. By it we may 
 learn (i) not to waste efforts in directions 
 which can lead to nothing; and (2) not to 
 neglect actions which our nature demands 
 we should perform, while supplying us with 
 facilities for their performance. 
 
 But that we may learn what our nature 
 really is we must first briefly consider that 
 system of thought which forms the basis of 
 agnosticism, and has become so widely dif- 
 fused and popular. This is the system of 
 
104 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 sensism^ subjectivism, or phenomenalism to 
 which I confidently oppose the system of 
 intellectualism. 
 
 The whole scheme of human life its pow- 
 ers, its aspirations, and its duties is most 
 powerfully influenced by the alternative to 
 be here adopted. No help can be greater 
 than such help as philosophy can afford us 
 to attain to a clear perception of where the 
 truth lies in this important controversy. 
 
 The sensist position may be thus stated : 
 
 (1) All our knowledge is merely relative. 
 
 (2) We know nothing with certainty save 
 our own feelings* 
 
 (3) We can therefore have no knowledge 
 of anything in itself that is, as it exists ob- 
 jectively and independent of our knowledge 
 of it. 
 
 The essential founder of this system was 
 Hume. It was proclaimed by Sir William 
 Hamilton, and has been rendered popular by 
 John Stuart Mill, Alexander Bain, G. H. 
 Lewes, Herbert Spencer, and Professor Hux- 
 ley. 
 
 Some of my readers may ask, " How can 
 
SUPREMACY OF REASON 105 
 
 you venture to raise yourself up in opposition 
 to a system which has such sponsors? To 
 this I reply, there are two good reasons, one 
 or both of which cause almost all of the 
 above-named men to go wrong in such a 
 matter; but I will deal with these later on, 
 while a very small fact of recent history 
 gives me a right thus to raise myself in op- 
 position. 
 
 But first I would beg such questioners to 
 note that philosophy is not a matter of au- 
 thority, but of reason. At the beginning of 
 this essay I made my appeal to the reason 
 of my readers, and I now repeat that the au- 
 thority of no name, however justly or un- 
 justly respected, can have the least weight 
 in the balance of science against the clear 
 declarations of the individual intellect. 
 
 The very small fact of recent history which 
 gives me some claim to be heard in this 
 controversy is the fact that, when my intel- 
 lectual life began, I was a student and dis- 
 ciple of the very school I here oppose. The 
 works of Hume, Hamilton, Mill, Lewes, 
 Bain, Spencer, and Huxley I studied to the 
 
106 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 best of my ability, while I have had the great 
 advantage of personal acquaintance with 
 some of the more distinguished ones who 
 were my contemporaries. This has given 
 me a much better grasp of the system they 
 favored than could have been obtained by 
 reading only. 
 
 Absurd as that system is, it for a long time 
 held my mind in thrall ; but if such consid- 
 erations as I have here put forward had been 
 brought to my notice in my earlier days, I 
 should have been spared much waste of en- 
 ergy and much disadvantage, and I therefore 
 feel keenly the evils of such a system. As 
 it was, I after a time began to feel doubt 
 about the validity of the system I had, at 
 first, ingenuously adopted. 
 
 It took me, however, a long time to find 
 my way out through the ingeniously con- 
 structed metaphysical labyrinth in which I 
 had got myself imprisoned. But I escaped 
 the philosophic Minotaur (agnosticism) not 
 by drawing back or shirking any difficulty, 
 but by pushing forward and slowly working 
 my way through its difficulties till I made 
 
AS TO THE "RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE" 107 
 
 my exit, after having thoroughly traversed it. 
 But to return to the system itself: 
 
 In the second part of this essay it has, I 
 hope, been satisfactorily demonstrated that 
 we can know our own continuous existence, 
 and, by memory, obtain a knowledge of 
 things objective. If so, the second and third 
 of the above cited sensist positions ipso facto 
 fall to the ground. But over and above 
 memory, a comprehension of the law of con- 
 tradiction also introduces us into the domain 
 of objectivity of real things in themselves, 
 as distinguished from thoughts and feelings. 
 
 As to the assertion that " all our knowl- 
 edge is merely relative," there is a notewor- 
 thy ambiguity. Of course, anything which 
 is "known to us" cannot at the same time 
 be " unknown to us " ; and, so far as this, our 
 knowledge may be said to affect the thing 
 we know. A thing known must stand in 
 the relation of being known, and our knowl- 
 edge is " relative/' inasmuch as it could not 
 be knowledge without that relation. But 
 this is utterly trivial. Our " knowing" or 
 "not knowing" any object is apart from 
 
108 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 some act which may be the result of such 
 knowledge a mere accident of that body's 
 existence, which is not otherwise affected 
 thereby. If the fossil remains of three por- 
 poises are discovered in some rock, were 
 they not as really there before they were 
 known to exist, and would they not have 
 been there if they had never been discov- 
 ered at all? As I pointed out when con- 
 sidering our knowledge of our own exist- 
 ence, nothing exists by itself and unrelated 
 to any other thing ; but that does not make 
 our knowledge relative, save in the above 
 mentioned trivial sense. 
 
 But, indeed, the system of the " relativity 
 of knowledge " really refutes itself ; for every 
 system of knowledge must start with the as- 
 sumption, implied or expressed, that some- 
 thing is true and known so to be. By the 
 teachers of the doctrine of the " relativity 
 of knowledge " it is taught that the doctrine 
 of the relativity of knowledge is thus true. 
 But if we cannot know that anything cor- 
 responds with external reality, if nothing we 
 can assert has more than a relative or phe- 
 
A SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY OVERTURNED 109 
 
 nomenal value, then this character must also 
 appertain to the doctrine of the " relativity 
 of knowledge" itself. 
 
 Either, then, this system of philosophy is 
 merely relative or phenomenal, and cannot 
 be known to be true, or else it is absolutely 
 true and can be known so to be. But it must 
 be merely relative and phenomenal, if every- 
 thing known by man is such. Its value, 
 then, can be only relative and phenomenal ; 
 therefore it cannot be known to correspond 
 with external reality, and cannot be asserted 
 to be true. If anybody asserts that we can 
 know the system of the relativity of knowl- 
 edge to be true, he thereby asserts that it is 
 false to say that our knowledge is only rela- 
 tive. In asserting that we can know the 
 system of the relativity of knowledge to be 
 true, he who so asserts thereby proclaims 
 that some of our knowledge must be abso- 
 lute ; but this upsets the foundation of the 
 whole system. 
 
 Therefore, any one who upholds such a 
 system as this may be compared to a man 
 seated high up on the branch of a tree which 
 
HO THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 he is engaged in sawing across where it 
 springs from the tree's trunk. The position 
 and occupation taken up by such a man 
 (whatever his name or repute may be) can- 
 not be considered as evidence of his pos- 
 sessing any exceptional amount of wisdom. 
 
 If, then, the system of the " relativity of 
 knowledge," or " sensism," be false, and the 
 dictates of our reason when probed to its ul- 
 timate foundations are to be trusted i. e., 
 if we avoid the mentally diseased condition 
 of absolute scepticism we have three clear 
 intellectual perceptions or intuitions : (i) a 
 perception or intuition of intelligence, or 
 intellectual activity, by a consciousness of 
 it as existing in ourselves in our own in- 
 tellect ; (2) a perception or intuition of 
 things external to us and of extension in the 
 extended objects about us ; and (3) a per- 
 ception or intuition of a divergence and 
 distinction of nature between thought and 
 extension between these two very different 
 kinds of existence. We can perceive in our 
 own very self both a continuous thinking in- 
 telligence and extended structures (such as, 
 
THE MIND KNOWS ITSELF m 
 
 e.g., our hands and feet) which do not think, 
 as we know by our own consciousness ; but a 
 little more reflection on what our own con- 
 sciousness tells us about ourselves teaches 
 us a further more important lesson. For we 
 know most intimately, by and in our own 
 consciousness, something our own intellect 
 which, as we have seen, exists continuously, 
 which is conscious of successive objects and 
 events, and which, while itself transcending 
 them, can recognize them as forming a series 
 which it "can contemplate as a whole or in 
 parts, and in different orders as may be de- 
 sired. In other words, our mind knows some 
 of its thoughts and experiences of yesterday, 
 and also that itself is something beyond 
 them. It can recognize those thoughts and 
 experiences as having occurred in a definite 
 succession, and can think of them as one 
 whole (" the thoughts and experiences of yes- 
 terday "), or of a part of them, and can think 
 of them in the order in which they occurred, 
 or the reverse order, or in any order which our 
 mind may for any reason select. This in- 
 tellectual power or principle (the mind) also 
 
112 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 knows itself with perfect certainty (as we 
 have seen), is aware of the kinds and di- 
 rections of its activities, and can regard them 
 as a whole, or in groups, or singly. It can, 
 it well knows, perceive its own states both 
 passive and active, and also external objects 
 and events, recognize what it thinks they are, 
 and can compare the relations between them, 
 returning upon itself at will along different 
 lines of thought, and also setting forth in 
 various directions a.t will. Such a power, or 
 principle, aware of all these things and pres- 
 ent to them all, cannot itself be multitudi- 
 nous, but must be a unity as complete as it 
 is possible for us to imagine namely, a sim- 
 ple unity. Therefore, this principle can be 
 neither a material substance nor a physical 
 force, but presents the greatest contrast to 
 both; and the greatest contrast to what is 
 material is what is immaterial. Also, since 
 each man knows that it is he who not only 
 thinks but also feels, he also knows, if he re- 
 flects upon it, that his body and this think- 
 ing principle are one unity. 
 
 Therefore, each of us is a unity with two 
 
EFFECT OF OUR INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITY 113 
 
 sets of faculties : material and mechanical on 
 the one hand, immaterial and unmechanical 
 on the other. No certainty we can attain to 
 about any other object can be nearly so cer- 
 tain as is this certainty we have about our own 
 being ; above all, its dynamic or immaterial 
 and active aspects. That each man is a ma- 
 terial, definitely organized substance in one 
 unity, with an active, immaterial principle re- 
 vealed in consciousness, is really the first 
 truth of physical science. It is emphatically 
 the fundamental truth of the science of liv- 
 ing organisms (biology), for of no other liv- 
 ing thing can we possibly have so complete 
 a knowledge as of ourselves, since only to 
 self-scrutiny can that, the most direct kind of 
 knowledge our immediate consciousness 
 be directly and immediately applied. 
 
 I have made the preceding observations 
 here because I desire to call special atten- 
 tion to the effect which the study of our own 
 intellectual activity must have on any com- 
 prehension of the world about us and our 
 relations thereto. In the historical order of 
 knowledge the knowledge of the individual 
 
114 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 as well as of the race the study of what is 
 external to us does come (as before said), and 
 must come, first. But as we emerge from 
 and put away the things of childhood we 
 have more and more to reverse this process. 
 For any satisfactory comprehension of the 
 world and man, the first and most pressing 
 need is an adequate acquaintance with our 
 own higher mental powers and processes. 
 The certain, though gradual, effect of their 
 faithful study will, I am confident, be the 
 overthrow of " sensism" and induce its re- 
 placement by the only system which is sat- 
 isfactory in its application on all sides, the 
 system which distinctly recognizes that the 
 basis of all science must consist of truths 
 recognized by thought as self-evident and 
 necessary the system of " intellectualism" 
 
 I most earnestly desire to direct my read- 
 ers' attention to the antithesis which exists 
 between these two schools of thought and to 
 the consequences which either involves. 
 
 The intellectual world is rapidly dividing 
 into two camps: (i) those of one upholding 
 the validity of the fundamental dictates of 
 
THE NOBILITY OF HUMAN REASON 115 
 
 reason with all its consequences ; (2) those 
 of the other who refuse to admit the va- 
 lidity of its dictates, and are forced in con- 
 sequence to stultify themselves by refuting 
 their own system and denying all absolute 
 and objective knowledge, even their percep- 
 tion of their own continuous existence. 
 
 It is then, as before said, my most earnest 
 desire, by appealing to the fundamental dec- 
 larations of each man's consciousness, to 
 make evident the nobility of human reason 
 by showing its wonderful power of knowing 
 objective as well as subjective truth, and of 
 recognizing the actual certainty of that which 
 it sees to be evidently true. This is so su- 
 premely important, because, if we could not 
 trust its declarations as to truth, how could 
 we confide in its imperative behests as to 
 goodness? And here we touch the founda- 
 tion of all that is noblest in human life, and 
 the final guide of aspiration and of conduct. 
 
 The greatest evil of such systems of phi- 
 losophy as those here combated is that, by 
 insidiously undermining our rational confi- 
 dence in human reason, they weaken the 
 
Il6 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 springs of vigorous and healthy action. Such 
 systems may well be called " the art of losing 
 one's way methodically." 
 
 The indignation of any one who values 
 our highest mental powers may well be ex- 
 cited by sophists who make use. of excep- 
 tional mental gifts for the purpose of dis- 
 paraging and virtually denying the existence 
 of that wonderful and admirable human in- 
 tellect which they insult and blaspheme. 
 
 The "helpful science," then, is not only the 
 real, though generally unsuspected, source of 
 every scientific discovery and all artistic prog- 
 ress, but also helps us, in a way in which 
 nothing else could help us, to appreciate the 
 dignity of our own nature. We have next 
 to consider, by its aid, what that dignity in- 
 volves. 
 
 An inevitable instinct impels us towards 
 seeking our own happiness and gratifying 
 our desires and passions. But however we 
 may allow ourselves to be carried along, our 
 reason can nevertheless ask the question, 
 " Are we really acting in a reasonable way if 
 we make pleasure our deliberate aim in life ?" 
 
FEELINGS ys, INTELLECTUAL PERCEPTIONS 117 
 
 Now, evidently the only rational aim of life 
 is that which reason tells us should be its 
 end. But to say that anything " should " be 
 its end is equivalent to saying it ought to be 
 its end, and the word " ought " is meaning- 
 less apart from the conception of " duty." 
 Thus our reason tells us (however we may 
 feel about it) that "duty" and not "pleas- 
 ure " is the true and proper end we should 
 pursue. 
 
 I have said "however we may feel about 
 it," because it is all important to bear in 
 mind the profound difference which exists 
 between the " feelings " and the " intellectual 
 perceptions " which may accompany our 
 actions. 
 
 Doing things which are right and kind is 
 often accompanied by pleasurable feelings, 
 but such things may be very painful. 
 
 Let us suppose that a man has found out 
 that some property which has enabled him 
 to support a large family is not really his 
 property, but belongs to some one else, to 
 whom he is bound to hand it over. Let us 
 further suppose that he does so hand it over, 
 
118 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 because he sees clearly that it is his duty so 
 to do. His perception as to what is right 
 will not prevent his feeling the material dis- 
 advantages which attend his praiseworthy 
 action or change pain into pleasure. 
 
 Similarly, a man or woman may judge 
 that it is his, or her, duty to break off an 
 intercourse which is against conscience, with- 
 out its being a bit less distressing, even 
 heart-rending, to break it off. 
 
 It is plain that we may feel pleasure in 
 doing things which are wrong, for certainly 
 they would otherwise never be done. On 
 the other hand, much painful regret may 
 be felt on account of quite innocent actions. 
 Thus some trifling breach of etiquette, or 
 some harmless violation of social usage may 
 cause us to blush and feel far more shame 
 than might attend some considerable moral 
 delinquency. Keen remorse also may be felt 
 on account of having neglected some excel- 
 lent opportunity of pushing our fortune, or 
 even of committing some very pleasurable 
 but very immoral action. A French writer 
 has said that no regret is so keen as the 
 
WHAT IS CONSCIENCE? 119 
 
 regret which may be felt for the non-com- 
 mission of pleasant sins which might have 
 been enjoyed. 
 
 Charles Darwin has said : " Conscience is 
 that feeling of regretful dissatisfaction which 
 is induced in a man who looks back and 
 judges a past action with disapproval." Now, 
 "conscience " certainly " looks back and judg- 
 es," but not all that " looks back and judges 
 with regretful dissatisfaction " is conscience. 
 Otherwise, a libertine who, wishing to en- 
 joy an -exceptionally immoral performance, 
 found to his surprise that he having mis- 
 taken his theatre was witnessing an inno- 
 cent one, might exercise his " conscience " 
 in looking back and judging "with regretful 
 disapproval " that he had bought a wrong 
 ticket ! 
 
 " Conscience " is a judgment of a particular 
 kind namely, about "right" and "wrong" 
 and nothing else. 
 
 The man we have supposed to be conscious 
 that he had made some trifling slip in his 
 manners while in company may color up and 
 feel distressed and ashamed, but he will not 
 
120 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 on that account judge that he has committed 
 an action morally wrong. 
 
 The profound distinction which exists be- 
 tween our ideal of " goodness" and every oth- 
 er conception can be illustrated by any even 
 the most trivial statement concerning duty. 
 Let us suppose, for example, that any one is 
 told he should " pay his tailor," and that the 
 assertion is disputed ; how should we set 
 about trying to convince him of its truth ? 
 Evidently we should have to fall back upon 
 some more obvious and general assertion 
 about duty, such as the assertion, " Every 
 man is bound to pay his debts." 
 
 If this is again disputed, we should have 
 to urge some still wider precept, such as " A 
 man is bound to carry out an agreement he 
 has himself chosen to make," and so on. 
 
 Every step we take to explain why any 
 duty should be performed must consist of 
 some still more simple assertion of the kind, 
 till we come to an assertion about duty, the 
 truth of which is admitted to be self-evident. 
 
 Now, all our certain knowledge must be ei- 
 ther evident in itself, or must depend upon 
 
121 
 
 some other knowledge which is evident in 
 itself. As we have before seen, we cannot 
 go on arguing forever, and every proof must 
 stop somewhere namely, when we reach 
 What is evident without proof. 
 
 If, then, we want to urge some statement 
 about any particular action being " right " 
 or " wrong " ! if that statement be not ad- 
 mitted to be evidently true, we can only 
 prove it to be so by means of some more 
 general and elementary statement of the 
 same nature. Therefore, the judgments which 
 lie at the root of any system of thought about 
 ethics (about right and wrong) must them- 
 selves be ethical. 
 
 This truth cuts the ground from under 
 renders simply impossible the theory that 
 any judgment as to moral obligation could 
 ever have grown out of mere feelings of lik- 
 ing or disliking, sympathy or aversion, good- 
 will or hostility of our fellow-men. 
 
 No stream can possibly rise higher than 
 its source. " Social approbation/' then, could 
 never have produced the conception of " right 
 and wrong " ; for how could a mere habit of 
 
122 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 obeying society have ever led a moral hero 
 to denounce that habit and defy society? 
 
 Yet there are a number of men such as 
 Mill, Bain, Spencer, Huxley, etc. who, 
 while they lay down the law as to what 
 " ought " or " ought not " to be done, deny 
 that there is any real, fundamental distinct- 
 ness between " virtue " and " pleasure." I 
 mean they deny that there is any absolute 
 distinction between them, and affirm that 
 "good actions" are merely actions pleasura- 
 ble or useful to the individual who performs 
 them, or advantageous to his fellow- men. 
 They say, also, that it is the pleasurable or 
 useful results which cause actions to be good 
 actions, not the intentions with which the 
 doer may perform them. 
 
 It is true, we say, " That is a ' good ' knife," 
 because it cuts well, and any weapon, coat, 
 or other useful article is said to be a "good" 
 one if it serve well the purpose for which it 
 was intended. But a very little considera- 
 tion will show that such a use of the word 
 does not bring us to the fundamental mean- 
 ing of the term. For " conformity to an 
 
WHY SHOULD WE DO RIGHT? 123 
 
 end " will not make an action good unless 
 the end aimed at is itself good and agreea- 
 ble to duty unless by conforming to it we 
 ''follow the right order." If a youth, care- 
 fully instructed by Fagin, conforms to his 
 end by picking pockets with extraordinary 
 deftness, such " conformity '' will not make 
 pocket-picking "good." 
 
 But when the end is really good and part 
 of our duty, if we ask, " Why should we do 
 our duty? why should we follow the right 
 order?" there is no answer possible but, "It 
 is right so to do." 
 
 If it be urged in opposition that " we 
 should follow the right order because it is 
 our true interest," he who so urges must ei- 
 ther mean " we should always follow our 
 own interest," which is equivalent to aban- 
 doning the rule of " right and wrong " alto- 
 gether, or he must mean " we should follow 
 our interest, not because it is our interest, 
 but because it is right " a proposition which 
 is a mistaken one, but yet one which, in its 
 mistaken way, affirms the very rule of " right 
 and wrong" it was designed to oppose. 
 
124 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 But persons who say that the morality of 
 any action depends on its results can always 
 be refuted simply by examining into the as- 
 sertions about duty which they themselves 
 make. One most amusing, instructive, and 
 memorable example of the kind is afforded 
 us by no less a person than John Stuart Mill. 
 That eminent utilitarian (i. e. denier of the 
 absolutely distinct natures of "goodness" 
 and " pleasure "), has written * as follows : 
 
 " If I am informed that the world is ruled 
 by a being whose attributes are infinite, but 
 what they are we cannot learn, nor what are 
 the principles of his government, except that 
 the highest human morality which we are 
 capable of conceiving does not sanction them ; 
 convince me of it and I will bear my fate as 
 I may. But when I am told that I must be- 
 lieve this, and at the same time call this be- 
 ing by the names which express and affirm 
 the highest human morality, I say in plain 
 terms that I will not. Whatever power such 
 
 * See his Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Phi- 
 losophy, p. 103. 
 
JOHN STUART MILL'S POSITION 125 
 
 a being may have over me, there is one thing 
 which he shall not do he shall not compel 
 me to worship him. I will call no being 
 'good' who is not what I mean when I ap- 
 ply that epithet to my fellow-creatures ; and 
 if such a being can sentence me to hell for 
 not so calling hjm, to hell I will go." 
 
 Now this declaration is truly admirable ; 
 nevertheless, it is very much out of place in 
 Stuart Mill's mouth, or in the mouth of any 
 other professed " utilitarian" For, if actions 
 were " good " or " bad " merely according to 
 the pleasure or pain which followed them, 
 and if by flattering a bad God we could get 
 the greatest happiness, while by refusing to 
 do so we should incur the greatest misery, 
 then clearly on utilitarian principles (not on 
 those. I advocate), such flattery would be 
 "good." 
 
 Stuart Mill's position is indeed a curious 
 one ; for, of course, he means that other men 
 should do as he says he would do. Thus on 
 the one hand he declares that all men should 
 (as being utilitarians) seek the greatest hap- 
 piness for all, and also that in so doing they 
 
126 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 should all voluntarily plunge into the great- 
 est misery ! 
 
 This is one striking example of how im- 
 possible it is for the most distinguished men 
 to go directly in opposition to the principles 
 of the " helpful science " without stultifying 
 themselves. 
 
 And now as to Professor Huxley's asser- 
 tions (i) that it is not the intention of the 
 man who acts, but the consequences of his act 
 which makes his action "bad" or "good," 
 and (2) that the highest virtue is to do good 
 without thinking about it : 
 
 Let us suppose that two men have each a 
 sick wife, and that the doctor has left with 
 each man two bottles : one a valuable inter- 
 nal medicine, the other a poisonous lotion 
 to be used externally. One of these men, 
 who loves his wife fondly, gives her, by pure 
 mistake, the lotion to drink and kills her. 
 The other man desires to poison his wife, 
 but, by a similar mistake as to the bottles, 
 gives her, unintentionally, the right medicine 
 and cures her. Can there be any doubt as 
 to who is the truly guilty man ? Who dare 
 
" DOING GOOD WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT " 127 
 
 assert that the action of the second man was 
 a " good " action because, in spite of his evil 
 intention, it had a good result? 
 
 Yet this must be so if Professor Huxley's 
 principle has any truth in it ! 
 
 Then as to " doing good without thinking 
 about it " it cannot be meant that it is the 
 absence of thought which makes a sponta- 
 neously performed useful action specially 
 meritorious ; otherwise we should attain the 
 climax of virtue by performing beneficial ac- 
 tions unconsciously in a state of somnambu- 
 lism ! 
 
 The admirable nature of spontaneous good 
 actions lies in their being the result of good 
 habits, not in the mere absence of reflec- 
 tion. A man cannot appreciate justice with- 
 out being able to distinguish it from injus- 
 tice, and to love " goodness " he must at least 
 " know" it. 
 
 But another objection to any absolute dis- 
 tinction between "right" and "wrong" is 
 sometimes drawn from the fact that differ- 
 ent nations (and the same nation at different 
 times) take different views as to the " good- 
 
128 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 ness " of some particular kind of action. But 
 this argument is quite valueless. It would 
 be absurd, indeed, to suppose that all men 
 were naturally, or supernaturally, furnished 
 with a whole code of laws directing what is 
 to be done and what abstained from in all 
 cases. What is affirmed by Intellectualists 
 is, that men are naturally and universally 
 (idiots apart) endowed with a perception 
 that there is such a thing as " right" and 
 "wrong." Men are not necessarily devoid of 
 morality because they draw their lines and 
 rules in different places from what we do. 
 The most horrible actions, such as the delib- 
 erate killing of aged parents, may really be 
 the result of true moral judgments under pe- 
 culiar circumstances. Such is the case in a 
 tribe the elders of which desire death to se- 
 cure a happy immortality. Men do not al- 
 ways agree about the application of moral 
 principles: what they agree about is that 
 there is such a thing as a moral character 
 attaching to certain actions. Even an untu- 
 tored savage would perceive that an un- 
 grateful and treacherous injury inflicted on 
 
MOTIVES AFFECT JUDGMENT 129 
 
 himself was a wrong, and one that merited 
 chastisement. 
 
 Though thieving may have been here and 
 there inculcated, there is also the saying 
 " Honor amongst thieves," and the great- 
 est rascals often recognize the moral claims 
 their " pals " have on them. Men have often 
 thought it right to do things which were 
 really unjust ; but they never thought any 
 action to be " right " because it was " unjust," 
 or any action to be wrong because it was 
 "just." 
 
 On the other hand, we may very properly 
 deem some actions to be less virtuous less 
 " right " than others because they are useful ; 
 and others less "wrong" because they are 
 useless. Thus we may admire the devotion 
 with which a man may minister to a sick 
 friend ; but if, after that friend's death, we 
 find that the man who ministered to him 
 has received a rich bequest, our appreciation 
 of his devotedness may be much diminished. 
 
 x 
 
 Similarly, a woman may have a sinful attach- 
 ment to a man, but if we find that instead of 
 any worldly gain thence derived, she simply 
 
130 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 sacrifices herself for him, our censure may 
 thereby be mitigated, since it shows she 
 "has loved much." 
 
 Thus so essential is the distinction be- 
 tween "the good" and "the useful" that 
 not only does the idea of " benefit '' not en- 
 ter into the idea of " duty," but the very 
 fact of an action not being beneficial may 
 make it more praiseworthy. Its merit is in- 
 creased by any self-denial which may be nec- 
 essary to its performance, while gain tends 
 to diminish the merit of an action. It is 
 not that absence of gain or pleasure benefits 
 our neighbor more; it is that any diminution 
 of pleasure which circumstances may occa- 
 sion (irrespective of any advantage thereby 
 occasioned to our neighbor) in ^^height- 
 ens the value of the action. But evidently 
 that can never be the "substance of duty" 
 which increases " dutifulness " by its ab- 
 sence ! 
 
 We have seen, in considering the principle 
 of contradiction, that the human mind has 
 the power of knowing absolute, necessary, 
 and universal truth. Similarly, reason shows 
 
" CONSCIENCE SUPREME 131 
 
 us that the commands of conscience are ab- 
 solute and supreme. But if we see that its 
 universal and unconditional authority can 
 never be evaded, then the ethical principle 
 must be rooted, as it were, within the inmost 
 heart, in the very foundations, so to speak, 
 of the entire universe, which it must pervade 
 wherever any moral beings exist. The prin- 
 ciples of the moral law must then be at 
 least as extensive and enduring as are those 
 starry heavens which shared with it the pro- 
 found reverence of Kant. 
 
 The conception of duty is the conception 
 of something supreme and absolutely in- 
 cumbent upon us without appeal apart from 
 any question of pleasures and pains, rewards 
 and punishments. It is, in the immortal 
 words of Cicero : 
 
 " Quod tale est ut detracta omni utilitate 
 sive allis prczmiis fructibusque per seipsum 
 possit jure laudari." 
 
fcart 1TD 
 
 THE conclusion we arrived at in the third 
 part of this essay was that the ideas "virtue " 
 and " utility" are fundamentally distinct, and 
 also that the claims of "duty" are absolutely 
 imperative and supreme. This conclusion, it 
 was observed, had certain important antece- 
 dents, and it has also no less practical conse- 
 quences. 
 
 The antecedents I referred to were the 
 considerations which warranted that conclu- 
 sion. In order to obtain a just appreciation 
 of these it was necessary to dig down to the 
 very foundations of human knowledge and so 
 ascertain what must be the ultimate grounds 
 of our beliefs in every proposition which we 
 regard as the most certain and unquestion- 
 able. 
 
 It is impossible, we have seen, to find, or 
 even conceive of, grounds more absolutely 
 
ULTIMATE TRUTHS 133 
 
 certain than those which ultimate truths 
 bear within themselves namely, their own 
 self-evidence. The ultimate truths we have 
 recognized are (i) our own existence and our 
 knowledge thereof; (2) the validity of our 
 own perception of objectivity through our 
 faculty of memory ; and (3) the validity also 
 of logical reasoning ; the certainty (4) of the 
 principle of contradiction, and (5) the reality 
 and significance of "truth." By considering 
 the wondrous fact that the human mind 
 can know a certain amount of universal and 
 necessary truth (as that nothing can simulta- 
 neously exist and be non-existent), perceive 
 the extension of extended objects and the dif- 
 ference between "thought " and " extension," 
 we recognized that our intellectual energy 
 must be an immaterial unity and one faculty 
 of our whole being, the material nature of 
 which possessed the other property- namely, 
 " extension." 
 
 These truths follow one from another as 
 necessary consequences of our fundamental 
 perceptions of things evidently true, and are 
 the antecedents and justification of our eth- 
 
134 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 ical perceptions our judgments of what is 
 certain in the domain of morals. 
 
 Let us next turn to some of the conse- 
 quences of our moral intuitions. 
 
 Every man who has pondered over his 
 own nature (without having accepted as sat- 
 isfactory any of the current forms of relig- 
 ious teaching) must have speculated about 
 his origin and his destiny, and have proba- 
 bly asked himself, " What is the meaning of 
 life?" 
 
 Every such man has his own way of re- 
 garding the world, and, it may be, has ar- 
 rived at the conclusion that he can attain 
 no satisfaction about it. He will, however, 
 certainly admit that, to obtain answers to 
 such questions if they can be obtained is 
 a most practical matter. To such men this 
 essay is offered as a presentation of thoughts 
 (a science) to them specially helpful. If the 
 rational end of life is (as put forward in Part 
 III.) the fulfilment of duty, then no one can 
 have an objectless existence. The poor no 
 less than the rich, the foolish as well as the 
 wise, and. those who are aged and infirm, 
 
CONDUCT SHOULD RECEIVE ITS DESERTS 135 
 
 as well as the healthy and young, have all 
 a truly noble prospect before them. The 
 fulfilment of duty has also, as I think may 
 be clearly shown, its practically advanta- 
 geous results. 
 
 I observed, at the conclusion of the last part 
 of this essay, that reason shows us the ful- 
 filment of duty to be incumbent upon us apart 
 from any question of prospective pleasures or 
 pains. But, though duties are thus incumbent 
 apart from questions of rewards or punish- 
 ments, yet we certainly have evident percep- 
 tions as to justice with respect to the conse- 
 quences of our actions. 
 
 It is an evident truth that every responsi- 
 ble person deserves differently according to 
 the way he has acted with respect to his 
 responsibilities. If he has acted well, it is 
 plain that he has so far acquired merit, and 
 has claims in accordance therewith. If he 
 has acted ill, it is manifest that he has ac- 
 quired demerit, is less to be valued, and de- 
 serves to be treated accordingly. 
 
 Justice demands that each man should be 
 dealt with exactly according to his deserts, 
 
136 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 and that happiness should (at least, ultimate- 
 ly) attend on virtue, and unhappiness on vice. 
 Not only does the practice of virtue often 
 entail grave sacrifices, but, as we have seen, 
 the greater the sacrifice the higher the virtue 
 and the more evident the merit. Although 
 a virtuous man feels, as a rule, pleasure in 
 his good actions, yet to this there are limits, 
 and it is surely desirable that evil should be 
 avoided and good deeds done by the great 
 mass of mankind, who certainly have not at- 
 tained a degree of virtue which any one need 
 term Quixotic. It would outrage our per- 
 ception of what is just, did we know that 
 happiness would ever be finally divorced from 
 virtue ; and this perception is one which for- 
 cibly shows the close relation which exists 
 between "knowing" and " doing." 
 
 What are the plain dictates of ordinary 
 common-sense? what maxim do we hear 
 urged in the by-ways of our cities which 
 comes home not only to the feelings, but to 
 the moral judgment of the masses? Surely 
 it is the saying that a man deserves "a fair 
 day's wages for a really fair day's work." 
 
"DAILY WORK" REQUIRED OF EVERY ONE 137 
 
 And as every man, whatever his degree, 
 needs his daily bread, so also is a daily ^vork 
 required of him, as his conscience plainly tells 
 him. The daily work required of every one 
 of us is to " do what is right " to " follow the 
 right order" according to our various cir- 
 cumstances : and this in our secret thoughts 
 as well as in word and deed ; for thoughts 
 deliberately entertained are actions begun. 
 This is the work set before every man and 
 woman to .do rich and poor, strong and 
 weak, young and old, learned and ignorant 
 and this is the supremely " good work " 
 which our perceptions of justice assure us 
 cannot ultimately be divorced from happi- 
 ness. Yet both ancient and modern writ- 
 ings teem with protests against the success- 
 ful evil-doer, and history is full of examples 
 of apparently successful injustice. It is true 
 that some agnostics affirm that every man 
 receives microscopic justice complete ret- 
 ribution in this life for his every deed, word, 
 and thought. I recollect, a few years ago, 
 appealing to a leading agnostic in England 
 for a subscription towards maintaining the 
 
138 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 widow and children of a poor but most wor- 
 thy laborer, suddenly killed by a fall from a 
 house-roof. He had left behind him, bed- 
 ridden with cancer, a wife to whom, and to 
 his young family, he had been accustomed 
 to minister before setting out for his daily 
 toil. I did not obtain one shilling from this 
 leading agnostic. He did not use the pre- 
 cise words "Served him right" (!), but he 
 said to me, " How do you know he was not 
 entertaining a bad thought when he so fell, 
 and met with his punishment?" 
 
 So groundless a superstition as that every 
 one has such microscopic justice awarded to 
 him here, hardly seems to me to deserve ar- 
 gument ; but is it possible to think that the 
 poor boy who was the son of Marie Antoi- 
 nette, and who suffered so many cruel tort- 
 ures, could by the actions of his brief life 
 have merited so terrible a chastisement ? 
 
 If, then, we cannot count on justice here, 
 our ethical perceptions seem to demand a 
 future life as a moral necessity. 
 
 It surely must be admitted that a strong 
 conviction as to a future life is of the utmost 
 
DOING GOOD FOR THE SAKE OF A REWARD 139 
 
 practical importance with respect to the moral 
 work we have some of us every now and 
 then to do. If we can attain a certain and 
 sure knowledge that such a future is even 
 probable, such a knowing has evidently a 
 very close and influential relation to doing. 
 I am far indeed from meaning to imply that 
 we should do good for the sake of a reward, 
 but, knowing what sort of creatures we men 
 are, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that 
 for most of us when the will, under tempta- 
 tion, is just trembling in the balance such 
 considerations must have, and for reasonable 
 men should have, a decided influence. 
 
 As to the reasonableness of any confidence 
 in a future after death, as considered with 
 the best aid we can obtain from "the help- 
 ful science," I have something to say later 
 on. Here, however, we may at once note 
 what considerations as to physiology may be 
 able to teach us. But, in fact, the very last 
 refinements of physical science do not add 
 one jot to the most commonplace and old- 
 fashioned arguments against a future life. It 
 was known centuries enough ago that " when 
 
140 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 the brains were out the man would die, and 
 then an end," as regards the life of the body, 
 and we know absolutely no more to-day. We 
 are, of course, utterly unable to imagine the 
 soul's existence after death, because we have 
 had no such experience, and we can never 
 imagine anything whereof we have had no 
 kind of experience* 
 
 But our inability to form a mental picture 
 of anything is no reason whatever for not be- 
 lieving in its existence. Who can picture an 
 act of thinking ? yet nothing is more certain 
 to us than that we not only believe, but abso- 
 lutely know, with entire certainty, that we 
 can and actually do think. Similarly, our in- 
 tuition of the self-evident character bf the 
 precept " We should act rightly," our respon- 
 sibility with respect to our actions which con- 
 sciousness reveals, and the manifest absence 
 of any complete system of retribution in this 
 life, positively dehiand a life hereafter. The 
 demand will, wheri we consider what has 
 been already poirlted out about the varied 
 powers of our simple intellectual unity of 
 nature, appear a very reasonable demand. 
 
AS TO A FUTURE LIFE 141 
 
 Either the moral law is a fable, and Jack 
 the Ripper a utilitarian who blamelessly fol- 
 lows after pleasure in his own peculiar way, 
 and the grossest and most malicious of man- 
 kind are alone right and alone rewarded, or 
 virtue must sooner or later be vindicated and 
 victorious. 
 
 But these reasonings may be combated by 
 some such objections as the following : 
 
 " We can know nothing about such mat- 
 ters ; for a future life in accordance with our 
 deserts implies a God, and as to the existence' 
 of a God we can know nothing. Eminent 
 agnostics assure us that, ignorant as we are 
 of all such matters, we are above all inca- 
 pable of knowing anything about a cause of 
 the universe. We are, indeed, rather proud 
 than otherwise of our ignorance, since we are 
 convinced that you, in thinking you know 
 something even about a God, prove thereby 
 that you know less than we do ourselves. 
 We altogether deny that any knowledge of 
 a cause is possible at all ; what is called 
 ' causation' is really nothing but invisible, 
 unconditional ' sequence/ We can see that 
 
142 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 one thing, or set of circumstances, is always 
 followed by another, but we never do or can 
 see any bond or compelling nexus between 
 them !" 
 
 In reply to these objections a few words 
 must be said about our knowledge of causes 
 of any kind, before entering upon the tre- 
 mendous question concerning the existence 
 and nature of a cause of the whole universe, 
 and as to the possible extent of our knowl- 
 edge thereof. 
 
 It is quite true that we never feel or see 
 physical causation, because it is both intan- 
 gible and invisible; but, though our senses 
 cannot perceive it, our intellect can and does. 
 When we knock a nail into a board with a 
 hammer, it is simply nonsense to tell us that, 
 because we can only see the nail, board, and 
 hammer, we cannot know that we exert a 
 force which makes the nail go in. But there 
 is one instance in which a man can be aware 
 not only of an antecedent and consequent, 
 and the causal relation between them, but 
 also the very bond or nexus between them 
 can be distinctly perceived by us. This is 
 
CONFLICTING MOTIVES 143 
 
 the case whenever a man is in doubt about 
 what course to pursue, owing to his being 
 drawn in different directions by different 
 motives. Then the inflow and force of the 
 conflicting motives acting upon his own mind 
 can be distinctly perceived by him. We can 
 all also perceive it when anything resists our 
 will. Let us suppose that the stem of a small 
 tree has been partly sawn through and that 
 we then try whether we can pull it down. 
 If the coherence of the part not sawn through 
 is still very great, we may have to exert all 
 our force to overcome it. When at last we 
 have succeeded, and are exhausted with our 
 efforts, we may feel very vividly that any one 
 who denied we had caused the tree to come 
 down must be as great a lunatic as any one 
 who denied the objective existence of the 
 tree at all. In fact, the idea " force " is a 
 primary and ultimate idea which cannot be 
 analyzed into any others. If any reader 
 doubts this, I can only advise him to try to 
 analyze it. 
 
 But it may be said because such follies 
 have been printed that, though we may be 
 
144 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 conscious of our own force, we err if we as- 
 sert efficient causation in any other instance, 
 making the mistake even of attributing to in- 
 animate things feelings like those we experi- 
 ence in making physical efforts. Surely great- 
 er nonsense has been rarely uttered. Let us 
 suppose the partly-sawn-through tree to be 
 not even touched by us, but that a gale has 
 sprung up which, after having swayed it to 
 and fro, breaks it off and prostrates it just as 
 we have supposed it prostrated by human 
 efforts. 
 
 Are we not to say that the wind has ex- 
 erted as much force as was ours? and can we 
 not say this confidently, without being such 
 idiots as to attribute " feelings" to the wind? 
 
 Truly, then, we have actual experience of 
 causation, but we have much more than that, 
 for a little reflection will be enough to show 
 the reader that the law of causation is a nec- 
 essary and universal truth which carries with 
 it its own evidence. 
 
 In the first part of this essay (among other il- 
 lustrations of the certainties of every-day life) 
 we said that if we find a door closed which 
 
NO ACTION WITHOUT EXISTENCE 145 
 
 we knew was open some time before, we 
 may be certain that some person or thing 
 has closed it. Similarly, if we come upon a 
 corpse with its throat cut, we know with cer- 
 tainty the wound must have been either self- 
 inflicted or been the act of some other person. 
 All certainties of that kind are summed up 
 in the law of causation, which declares that 
 " Every change is due to some cause." This 
 being a primary, ultimate truth, cannot, of 
 course, be proved by any other truth, yet its 
 certainty may be perceived by reflection as 
 well as directly. Thus it is plain that what 
 does not even exist cannot act, and, conse- 
 quently, cannot be a cause. Therefore, any- 
 thing which comes newly into being cannot 
 be caused by itself, because it could not pos- 
 sibly have acted before it came into being. 
 It must, then, have been brought into being 
 by the agency of something else which was 
 its cause. Every change in anything which 
 already exists is, in fact, a new mode of be- 
 ing, and, therefore, equally demands a cause 
 for its existence. It must, then, be due either 
 to some distinct existence or to some other 
 
146 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 antecedent mode of being of that thing 
 which now exists in its new mode. As, 
 when we awake from sleep, our awakening 
 must be due either to something external 
 which has awakened us, or to some change 
 which has taken place in our own organism. 
 In the latter case, that change or new mode 
 of our being, which we call " wakening from 
 sleep," had for its cause an antecedent state 
 of our body more vigorous circulation, or 
 what not. 
 
 Again, all and every object we see or 
 feel must, we know, be the result of the 
 action of some or other external cause or 
 causes. This is evident with every object 
 made by man ; but no stone we tread on, 
 no patch of sod or mud, can have come to 
 be what it is save by the action of some an- 
 tecedent causes. And this does not only 
 apply to every complex structure, but to 
 the simplest material object, even though it 
 consists alone of what we call one of the ul- 
 timate chemical elements; e.g., a pure metal 
 or piece of crystallized carbon that is, a 
 diamond. 
 
CONDITIONS DEMAND A CAUSE 147 
 
 Any such object demands a cause for its 
 being in the place it is at the time it is there, 
 for its size, shape, etc., and for all its rela- 
 tions to surrounding things, as well as any 
 special qualities of its own internal condi- 
 tion. Its own special conditions would also 
 demand a cause, even if such a body existed 
 alone and by itself in an otherwise empty uni- 
 verse if we can permit ourselves to frame 
 for a moment so absurd an hypothesis. 
 Therefore, everything which can be seen not 
 to contain a sufficient cause for its own ex- 
 istence within itself, must be due to some 
 cause or causes external to it. Only some- 
 thing which is absolutely simple, indivisible, 
 and eternal can escape from this law of uni- 
 versal causation. Moreover, this perception 
 is not the mere result of a mental impo- 
 tence of the imagination it is not a nega- 
 tive inability to imagine a complex thing 
 uncaused but is a positive and active power 
 of perception. Let the reader first consider 
 his idea of a stone of some definite shape 
 and size, made of two or more mineral sub- 
 stances. Then let him ask himself whether 
 
148 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 he does not actively and positively see that 
 its shape and composition must positively 
 be due to influences of different kinds, or 
 whether he finds himself merely passive, and 
 unable to help himself to be certain of any. 
 thing about it. 
 
 This consideration does away with an ob- 
 jection made to the law of causation when, 
 as is often the case, it is incorrectly stated. 
 It is sometimes stated thus: "Every exist- 
 ence must have a cause." Then, of course, 
 the objection at once arises that thus we 
 have a regressus ad infinitum, and, if there is 
 a God, he must have a cause, and so on for- 
 ever which is, of course, absurd. It is not, 
 however, " everything which exists," but " ev- 
 erything which newly exists and does not 
 contain within itself a sufficient cause for its 
 being," which alone demands a cause. 
 
 Having gained a clear perception of this 
 self-evident and necessary truth, let us con- 
 sider the material universe in the light thus 
 obtained. 
 
 The universe is the theatre of incessant 
 and apparently unending change; but our 
 
NO BEGINNING WITHOUT A CAUSE 149 
 
 present object is not to examine any of those 
 changes or any number of them, but to con- 
 sider them as forming one great, unimag- 
 inably complex whole. Does science une- 
 quivocally point to any beginning of such 
 a whole? I do not see that reason makes 
 it evident either that the whole cosmos (con- 
 sidered as one vast unity) ever had, or had 
 not, a beginning, or will ever have, or not, 
 an end. It is, at least, conceivable that the 
 cosmos may be a real system of perpetual 
 motion. 
 
 Of course, if the whole universe ever had 
 a beginning, it must have had a cause ; but 
 how is it on the hypothesis that it never had 
 a beginning? We saw that even a body 
 composed of a single chemical element de- 
 mands a cause to explain its shape and inter- 
 nal conditions. A fortiori, a body composed 
 of many substances, with a complex internal 
 structure and a variety of internal energies 
 actively at work, demands a cause, and not 
 one bit the less if it exists eternally. 
 
 This must apply equally if we imagine this 
 body expanded indefinitely till it reaches 
 
150 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 the extent of the material universe. If such 
 a universe is eternal, it none the less neces- 
 sarily demands an eternal cause. This is 
 absolutely certain, because the universe, as 
 one whole, could never have been evolved 
 by a process of natural selection that is, 
 have proved itself able to survive in a com- 
 petition with others because the universe, 
 considered as one whole, could have had no 
 competitors, and so, if it existed eternally, 
 it must have eternally existed by itself, with 
 the exception of its cause. 
 
 What, then, must we say as to the nature 
 and attributes of such a first cause? The 
 universe known to us is a universe replete 
 with order, harmony, and beauty, and is gov- 
 erned by laws admirably correlated. It is 
 also the abode of at least one race of beings 
 (ourselves) who possess intellect, can appre- 
 hend truth, goodness, and beauty, and pos- 
 sess a power of will. Moreover, we human 
 beings did somehow come into existence in 
 a world (the earth) previously devoid of or- 
 ganisms endowed with such marvellous fac- 
 ulties. 
 
CAUSES JUDGED BY THEIR EFFECTS 151 
 
 Now our reason assures us that we can, to 
 a certain extent, judge of causes by their 
 effects. We may be quite sure that a don- 
 key-engine will never draw a heavy train 
 from New York to San Francisco ; and what- 
 ever may be produced, must have been pro- 
 duced by something adequate to produce it 
 and this applies to a first cause as to every 
 other cause. 
 
 We too are, however, sometimes told that 
 we can be.no judges of the adequacy or in- 
 adequacy of causes, and we are asked how 
 we could know a priori the " adequacy " 
 of a piece of steel to produce a wound, or of 
 a flame to produce a burn ? To these objec- 
 tions it may be replied that the " adequacy " 
 is not in the steel or in the flame, but in these 
 as affecting a sensitive organism which they 
 may injure. The organism and the agents 
 are together adequate to produce the effects 
 cited, and the reason can perceive their ade- 
 quacy. 
 
 But the one appeal of physical science is 
 to " experience," and what does experience 
 tell us? We have certainly no experience 
 
152 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 of life having been produced from the life- 
 less, or of sensibility and intellect appearing 
 without their pre- existence in the agents 
 which caused their existence. In short, 
 experience shows us that "Nemo dat quod 
 non habet" Now, among the effects pro- 
 duced quite recently (geologically speaking) 
 in this planet, there are three which are not- 
 ably distinct from all the others. These 
 are: (i) intellect which can perceive truth; 
 (2) intellect perceiving the distinction be- 
 tween right and wrong; and (3) the power 
 of will. 
 
 Therefore, a first cause, as adequate to 
 produce such effects as these, must possess 
 corresponding attributes namely, intellect, 
 goodness, and will. Of such attributes our 
 own intellect, goodness, and will, can be at 
 most, as it were, but faint reflections. In 
 other words the First Cause, as possessed of 
 intellect and will, must be personal that is, 
 a Personal God. By the term " personal," 
 nothing more is here signified than the pos- 
 session of these two attributes : there can be 
 no other resemblance to a human personality. 
 
NO MISTAKE AS TO A "FIRST CAUSE" 153 
 
 Intellectualists are often reproached with 
 what is called their "Anthropomorphism," 
 and are reminded of Voltaire's saying: "Si 
 Dieu a fait rkomme en son image, rhomme 
 lui a joliment rendu" But since we are 
 mere human beings, it is absolutely impos- 
 sible for us to think at all, save in human 
 terms. There is, however, no danger of be- 
 ing misled. There is no danger of our re- 
 garding the First Cause as actually a man, 
 or as less than a man, and all we have to do 
 is, while using human language, to recognize 
 its necessary inadequacy, and that it can 
 but serve to indicate a true analogy. Evi- 
 dently it is inexpressibly more true to speak 
 of such First Cause as powerful than im- 
 potent, wise than foolish, and good than 
 bad. But so to recognize the Great Cause 
 of all things is enough for our practical pur- 
 poses. ' 
 
 Before, however, proceeding to the practi- 
 cal deduction we desire to draw from this 
 branch of " the helpful science," it may be 
 well to turn back and reconsider the real nat- 
 ure of those self-evident primary truths the 
 
154 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 existence of which we have already recog- 
 nized. 
 
 These truths, as we have seen, are self-evi- 
 dent and need no proof ; while, at the same 
 time, they are themselves indispensable in or- 
 der that anything else may be proved. They 
 are clear and certain, but they do not explain 
 themselves. The rays of light they bring 
 to the intellect are most luminous, but nev- 
 ertheless they are rays, and their source 
 the luminary whence they radiate remains 
 hidden from our direct mental gaze, and 
 can only be indirectly known through medi- 
 ation and reflection. Truth, as we have seen, 
 is a correspondence of thought with things. 
 What, then, is and must be that with which 
 these at once the highest yet most fun- 
 damental of all truths correspond ? Upon 
 them all the most certain deductions and in- 
 ductions of science and all the most practi- 
 cal rules of art ultimately repose. The grade 
 of perfection of every art and science de- 
 pends directly upon and varies with the 
 degree of accuracy wherewith our thoughts 
 correspond with objective reality. But with 
 
SENSISM AND AGNOSTICISM PERNICIOUS 155 
 
 what objective reality can those truths cor- 
 respond which are absolute, universal, and 
 necessary, except an absolute and infinite 
 First Cause? They must reflect upon our 
 minds illuminating rays from an inconceiv- 
 able source of all light and of all truth 
 from God ! 
 
 I am thus writing (as I said I should) not 
 in the interest of any special form of religion, 
 but merely as an earnest student of science 
 and an uncompromising upholder of the dig- 
 nity and worth of the human intellect. It is 
 in the name of science, of reason, and in 
 those names alone, that I have made, and 
 again make, the declaration that the system 
 of sensism and the folly of agnosticism are as 
 devoid of a rational basis as they are morally 
 pernicious ; as also that the most exhaust- 
 ive study of science above all, of the sci- 
 ence of sciences gives us the most solid 
 ground for affirming the existence of a most 
 wise, powerful, and good God as the First 
 Cause of the universe which surrounds us, 
 and, therefore, of our own being. But our 
 knowledge of Him is due to inference, not 
 
156 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 to intuition, and still less to any superra- 
 tional, spiritual illumination. Of such illu- 
 mination I, at least, possess no vestige, and 
 my appeal as to Theism is only to the hard 
 reason, the cold, dry intellect of my readers, 
 and not at all to pious feelings or edifying 
 sentiments. 
 
 Our moral intuitions thus proclaim the 
 existence of God as the source and cause 
 of such intuitions, but their absolute charac- 
 ter shows us that they cannot depend upon 
 even a Divine will, but must be of the very es- 
 sence of that inconceivable Divinity itself. 
 But although morality is absolute, and does 
 not depend on God's will or our recognition 
 of His existence, nevertheless that recogni- 
 tion most powerfully aids in and reinforces 
 our ethical judgments. A climbing plant, 
 though rooted in the soil, can live indepen- 
 dently of bodies in its vicinity, yet it can 
 never attain its perfection without external 
 aid. So moral aspirations need for their full 
 fruition the support of Theism. The same 
 moral perceptions also confirm that dictate 
 of our common - sense which declares that 
 
MORAL LAW AND WHAT IT IMPLIES 157 
 
 we have power over and are responsible for 
 some of our actions. The very existence of 
 a moral law implies and supposes the exist- 
 ence of some power on our part of obeying 
 or disobeying it that we have more choice 
 as to at least some of the resolutions we 
 form than a piece of paper thrown on the 
 fire has a choice as to whether it will burn or 
 not. For our reason clearly affirms that no 
 one can be justly blamed or punished fordoing 
 anything he cannot possibly help doing. We 
 may, of course, shoot a madman if we have no 
 other means of saving our lives ; but though 
 we kill him, we do not think him wicked, 
 but simply mad, and we may truly pity him 
 all the time. But we well know that there 
 are deeds which are really blameworthy, and 
 there are few of us entirely free from self- 
 reproach as to some actions of that kind. 
 
 When we recognize the certainty of God's 
 existence in connection with our moral per- 
 ceptions, the argument in favor of the exist- 
 ence of a future life becomes greatly strength- 
 ened. We said before that justice demands 
 a future life ; and our recognition of the be- 
 
158 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 ing of God removes all difficulty with respect 
 to its possibility. 
 
 That future existence can enable justice to 
 be fully satisfied; and not justice only, but 
 also the deepest and most vivid aspirations 
 of our better nature. 
 
 But who can fulfil that expectation and 
 aspiration of the enlightened conscience, or 
 discern our true merits or demerits, but an 
 infallible judge of conscience one who has 
 boundless wisdom, irresistible power, and is 
 absolutely just? It must be He who can 
 alone constitute our supreme good, and al- 
 ienation from whom must therefore be our 
 direct ill. It must be a First Cause who, 
 being the Author of human nature, alone 
 absolutely understands it. It must be God, 
 the supreme Legislator, Judge, Rewarder, 
 and Chastiser. 
 
 The truth that God exists is thus evident 
 to whoever really understands what the idea 
 of "duty" implies, and it will be the more 
 evident to him the more fully that idea is 
 understood. 
 
 There are three fundamentally different 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND GOODNESS 159 
 
 kinds of greatness in the world: (i) Material 
 greatness, which our senses can appreciate 
 and imagine ; (2) Scientific greatness, which 
 can be apprehended by our intellect, but not 
 by our sensitive faculty ; and (3) Moral great- 
 ness, which can be adequately perceived by 
 no human being, as we are not able accu- 
 rately to perceive even our own merits and 
 demerits. 
 
 As Pascal has well said, all merely mate- 
 rial bodies the earth and all the stars of the 
 firmament do not equal the value of one 
 human mind ; for it can know both them 
 and itself, while such merely material bodies 
 know nothing. It is no less clear that intel- 
 ligence and knowledge, however great, are 
 nothing when compared with goodness, and 
 moral truth is out of all proportion the 
 most important of all truth. Our reflective 
 reason shows us that the true end of man is 
 not that he should be strong, handsome, or 
 learned, but that he should be "good." If 
 a man were to obtain all possible knowledge, 
 and possess an inventive genius placing the 
 powers of nature at his disposal, yet, if he 
 
160 *THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 were not " good " if he lived a life divorced 
 from duty he would have missed his true 
 " end," and failed to " follow the right or- 
 der." Ethical (moral) truths are, therefore, 
 those which most concern us all, and are 
 of all the most practical. The knowledge 
 which helps us to be good is and must be 
 more valuable than all other kinds of knowl- 
 edge put together. This is the kind of " know- 
 ing " which helps the " doing " of that work 
 which is set before every one of us to do. 
 
 The foregoing considerations show us how 
 certain it is that no possible combination of 
 circumstances can deprive us of our true end 
 in life, and nothing but a bad will can divert 
 us from it. However humble and obscure a 
 man's lot in life may be, so long as he con- 
 tinues obedient to duty, it possesses a dignity 
 and a worth which cannot be overestimated. 
 Life, for him, is never without an adequate 
 aim never without utility, or deprived of a 
 sphere of meritorious action. Further, no 
 event in our lives can be without signifi- 
 cance, and no action can be an indifferent 
 one. A degree either of merit or of dement, 
 
BEAUTY AND MAJESTY OF REASON 161 
 
 however minute and trifling it may be, must 
 accompany every one of our conscious vol- 
 untary acts. 
 
 Such are the final considerations it is here 
 desired to bring forward as being the most 
 practical results of such study of " the help- 
 ful science." That science supplies us with 
 a firm and sure support for all those motives 
 which are most conducive to the welfare of 
 the individual, the family, the State, and, 
 ultimately, of. all mankind. 
 
 Basing our edifice of rational thought upon 
 the foundations afforded by the deepest and 
 most certain truths accessible to the mind of 
 man truths upon which all science and all 
 art must repose we are enabled to recognize 
 the beauty and majesty of human reason, 
 whose main glory is the recognition of moral 
 worth. The validity of our perception that 
 there is a fundamental distinction between 
 right and wrong and the authority of con- 
 science are, as before said, guaranteed by 
 the self-evidence of those fundamental veri- 
 ties which were recognized in the second and 
 third parts of this essay. They are truths 
 
162 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 which can be recognized, and are fully with- 
 in the grasp of every ordinary normal intelli- 
 gence, although the subtle puzzles of skilful 
 men may for a time blind many (as they have 
 blinded and do blind many) to their certain 
 truth. But since an accurate knowledge of 
 such truths has the supreme importance here 
 set forth, the responsibility of those who, by 
 their teaching, would blind men to them, 
 must be great indeed. Not less great is the 
 obligation which binds men who see through 
 such sophistic fallacies to stand up boldly 
 and refute them, however great may be the 
 hostility they may thereby bring upon them- 
 selves. 
 
 The system of sensism that is, the sys- 
 tem of the relativity of knowledge pos- 
 sesses the gravest defects. It fails to attain 
 the ultimate foundations of all our knowl- 
 edge, or to account for and harmonize what 
 consciousness tells us, by recognizing that 
 substantial, persisting existence of which 
 each man's consciousness, properly interro- 
 gated, cannot fail to assure him. It fails, 
 also, to recognize the principle of contradic- 
 
" INTELLECTUALISM " 163 
 
 tion, without which the intellect is reduced 
 to a state of chaos. It is absolutely fatal to 
 every germ of morality. It entirely nega- 
 tives the first principles of all religion, and, 
 finally, it stultifies itself by proclaiming its 
 own untruth a proclamation which is con- 
 tained in its assertion that all our knowledge 
 is but phenomenal and relative. 
 
 Intellectualism, on the other hand, lays its 
 foundations in the deepest truths accessible 
 to the human intellect, and accounts for and 
 harmonizes the declarations of consciousness 
 by recognizing our substantial and persistent 
 being. It fully accepts the principle of con- 
 tradiction, and thereby induces order into 
 our thoughts and perceptions. It supports 
 and enforces moral teaching, and firmly es- 
 tablishes the basis of all religion. Finally, 
 it affirms and justifies its own truth in dis- 
 tinctly apprehending the declaration of our 
 primary intuitions which contain their own 
 self-evidence, and are recognized as so con- 
 taining it. 
 
 How, then, can we account for sensism hav- 
 ing attained the wide acceptance it has ob- 
 
164 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 tained, and how is it that men of undoubted 
 intellectual distinction support it ? We have 
 already said that there are two good reasons 
 which account for this. One reason is the 
 course which human history has taken dur- 
 ing those alternations of fashion, in intellect- 
 ual as in other matters, which were called at- 
 tention to in the first part of this essay. 
 
 As before pointed out, Descartes first broke 
 with that philosophical system which had 
 been elaborated by the keenest intellects of 
 the Middle Ages, and sapped the basis of all 
 certainty. Abandoning the conviction previ- 
 ously entertained that we have a direct per^ 
 ception of external objects, and basing his 
 system exclusively on ideas, he paved the way 
 for the whole range of modern philosophy. 
 But mental images are but the means, not 
 the objects of perception. We do not per- 
 ceive "impressions," " images," or "repre- 
 sentations " of the objects about us, but by 
 means of them perceive the things themselves. 
 An examination of what our own mind de- 
 clares to us suffices to show that our faculties 
 not only furnish us with images or impres- 
 
SENSATIONS AND PERCEPTIONS 165 
 
 sions of things, but by means of those im- 
 ages and impressions, they represent that is, 
 they make the thing present to the intellect. 
 When we visit a menagerie we do not per- 
 ceive the sensations the animals within it 
 produce on our organs of sense, but the an- 
 imals themselves. Our sensations make bod- 
 ies known to us without being themselves 
 cognized. They, as it were, hide themselves 
 from our notice in giving rise to the percep- 
 tion they elicit, and can only be detected by 
 our expressly directing our attention to 
 turning our intellect upon them. Through 
 Descartes, and through the ambiguous sys- 
 tem of Locke, came the long procession con- 
 sisting of Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, 
 Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, to Schopen- 
 hauer and Hartmann, with visions of rare and 
 elaborate aerial palaces of cloudland, togeth- 
 er with the less dazzling constructions of the 
 brains of Mill, Bain, Spencer, etc., in our own 
 day. 
 
 Thus our speculative contemporaries and 
 our immediate predecessors may claim some 
 indulgence for having accepted taken for 
 
166 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 granted a mode of thought so widely cur- 
 rent, almost universally accepted, since Des- 
 cartes's day. Nevertheless, it is the business 
 of the philosopher to take no system for 
 granted, and to bow to no authority. It was 
 only by rebelling after many doubts and 
 much hesitation against that of Descartes, 
 and severely scrutinizing his position and ar- 
 guments, that I at last obtained intellectual 
 freedom and full mental satisfaction. 
 
 Thus it was that I became convinced the 
 time had at last arrived for another renas- 
 cence for the rejection of all forms of Car- 
 tesianism, and the construction of a more 
 satisfactory system based on principles the 
 truth of which had been formerly recognized, 
 but without any return to antiquated forms 
 or obsolete prejudices. This is the system 
 of intellectualism here put forward. It is a 
 system which, unlike Cartesianism, rests not 
 on ideas only, but also on those direct per- 
 ceptions of objective fact which take us out 
 of ourselves into that objective world which 
 surrounds us on all sides, as every healthily 
 constituted mind well knows. 
 
ILL EFFECTS OF A LOVE OF SUPERIORITY 167 
 
 History, then, largely helps us to account for 
 the pernicious errors of those who advocate 
 sensism and the relativity of knowledge. They 
 are the victims of long-established prejudices 
 which they have accepted unquestioningly. 
 
 There is another consideration, however, 
 which concerns a temptation likely to be 
 felt by some persons exceptionally gifted. 
 
 To excel in anything which is extraordi- 
 narily difficult must afford a special gratifi- 
 cation to .that love of superiority which so 
 many men possess who prize the admiration 
 of their fellows. And what could well be 
 more gratifying to such a man than to have 
 it believed that he apprehends things to 
 which the common herd are blind, while he 
 sees clearly that those things the vulgar re- 
 gard as most certain (e.g., their own contin- 
 uous existence, etc.) are but so many delu- 
 sions which his superior vision enables him 
 to recognize as such and rise superior to. 
 It is but too likely that this temptation has 
 had its full effect on some of those who have 
 startled the world by their bizarre philosoph- 
 ical notions. 
 
168 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 There is yet another reason which it is to 
 be feared has actuated, consciously or un- 
 consciously, some members of the sensist 
 school. A profound repugnance to religion, 
 however discreetly or astutely veiled, is at 
 the bottom of much of the popular meta- 
 physical teaching now in vogue. Delenda 
 est Carthago ! No system is to be tolerated 
 which proclaims the existence of a personal 
 God, moral responsibility, and future rewards 
 and punishments. 
 
 Men who feel thus, and who deal with 
 metaphysics, become driven from one ab- 
 surdity to another in their struggle to main- 
 tain an essentially irrational negative posi- 
 tion. 
 
 The fundamental principle of all religion, 
 the existence of God, reposes, as we have 
 seen, on a series of self-evident truths, which 
 must one after another be denied if the ex- 
 istence of God is to be impugned. Accord- 
 ingly, because morality is the most important 
 support to Theism, any real distinction be- 
 tween utility and virtue must be denied. 
 Also, since the principle of causation estab- 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION 169 
 
 lishes the Theistic position, it is necessary 
 to deny the validity of that principle. 
 
 But the principle of causation is a self- 
 evident and necessary truth ; therefore it be- 
 comes incumbent on those who deny the 
 certainty of our knowledge of God's exist- 
 ence also to deny that we can know any self- 
 evident and necessary truths at all there- 
 fore the principle of contradiction has to be 
 denied along with that of causation. 
 
 But those who deny this are logically com- 
 pelled to go further still, and deny the possi- 
 bility of our knowing objective truth at all. 
 So to deny, however, involves the denial of 
 the validity of memory, which (as we have 
 seen) introduces us to a knowledge of objec- 
 tivity, and this denial carries with it that of 
 any knowledge of our own existence. 
 
 Even thus the spirit of irrational negation 
 does not reach its climax. Not only is it 
 necessary for these men (if they would attain 
 their end) to affirm the certainty of uncer- 
 tainty; the necessity of the truth which de- 
 clares there is no necessary truth ; to make 
 use of their memory in order to deny the va- 
 
170 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 lidity of memory, and to know their continu- 
 ous existence long enough to be able to deny 
 the possibility of their knowledge of their 
 having any knowledge of it ; but they must 
 go yet further, and deny the real existence 
 of even thought itself. At a meeting of a 
 metaphysical society in London, it was not 
 long ago, "thought " was expressly declared 
 to be a " misleading term, the use of which 
 should be carefully avoided " and this 
 in spite of the fact that it is utterly im- 
 possible to form any kind of judgment ex- 
 cept by the aid of " thought," and by prac- 
 tically admitting its unique value. What 
 are we to think as to the merits of men who 
 promulgate doctrines the consequences of 
 which are so extremely anti-social ? Can we 
 say they are only foolish ? 
 
 One thing at any rate is certain. They 
 are unable to reply to such criticisms and 
 objections as are here urged. It is some 
 years since a refutation of the system of 
 sensism and the relativity of knowledge was 
 published by the present writer. Yet not 
 one of his critics has ever ventured to tackle 
 
THE "FIRST CAUSE 171 
 
 the arguments therein put forward, or to 
 try and defend his untenable position. 
 
 But " the helpful science " does not only 
 serve as a practical guide in life by showing 
 us the true end of human existence, but also 
 shows us that the whole world is replete 
 with purpose, as Emerson has sung. 
 
 Since the Universe proclaims to human 
 reason that it has for its First Cause a Being 
 possessing power,will, intelligence, and good- 
 ness (such as are inadequately shadowed 
 forth in our own faculties), it follows that 
 such a First Cause must be the author of yet 
 another kind of causation, namely, final cau- 
 sation. Philosophy assures us that there is a 
 reason why things are, and why they are such 
 as they are. Can the science of sciences also 
 help us to an answer to this riddle? 
 
 Directing our gaze on the world of animals 
 and plants -or on organic nature we find 
 that each organism plainly declares that it 
 is the embodiment of both an internal and 
 an external " purpose." Every organism, in 
 that it is an organism, is a structure the 
 parts of which are reciprocally "ends" and 
 
172 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 11 means" directed to the conservation of the 
 individual. But each organism also proclaims 
 itself to be instinct with a finality not its 
 own a purpose beyond itself which pene- 
 trates and regulates the inmost recesses of 
 its structure. 
 
 The phenomena which attend the devel- 
 opment of the adult structure from out of 
 its embryonic germ plainly announce that 
 they are directed towards a future end. As 
 Claude Bernard has said, in every living 
 germ there is a directing idea which develops 
 and manifests itself in and by that germ's 
 gradual organization. This truth is especial- 
 ly manifested in those animal instincts by 
 which, in such curious and complex ways, 
 a parent insect provides for the future wel- 
 fare of a progeny it is destined never to 
 behold. But a careful study of nature also 
 serves to reveal to us that it consists of a 
 hierarchy of energies and faculties; so that a 
 successively increasing fulfilment of " pur- 
 pose" runs through the irrational creation 
 up to man. 
 
 There can be little doubt but that before 
 
FROM PLANT LIFE TO MAN 173 
 
 life existed on this globe many ages passed 
 by while it was but a mass of inorganic sub- 
 stances, each possessing its own powers and 
 energies. Evidently, also, the earth was 
 clothed with vegetation long before its 
 groves were peopled with the higher forms of 
 animal life. For thousands, perhaps mill- 
 ions, of years its groves were songless, and 
 the flowers of its herbs were insignificant 
 and inodorous. For all we know such life 
 might have continued until now, for plants 
 can thrive without the presence of animals. 
 The animal world, however, could not exist 
 without a world of plant-life, for from plants 
 all animals must, directly or indirectly, ac- 
 quire their nutriment. 
 
 We now know how wonderfully rich, in 
 both animals and plants, the world was in 
 what is called the Miocene period. Nor can 
 we find any reason why such organisms 
 should not continue forever to live on with- 
 out the risk of subjugation by a rational 
 creature, such as man. 
 
 When at last men appeared they consti- 
 tuted a race which, though capable of living 
 
174 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 on vegetable food alone, yet needed animals 
 dogs, horses, flocks and herds to attain 
 any high development and complex social 
 organization. 
 
 Thus an increasing service, and conse- 
 quently an increasing dependence, runs on 
 from the world of lifeless seas and rivers, 
 rocky mountains and sandy wastes, through 
 vegetable and animal life up to man. The 
 sun's beams, though potent in inducing at- 
 mospheric and aqueous currents, neverthe- 
 less actually serve the organic world far 
 more than the inorganic, and the powers of 
 nature do more for the animal, with all its 
 sentient faculties, than for the plant. But 
 they do most of all for man, since he makes 
 use of all the lower orders of existence, both 
 organic and inorganic. Therefore we must 
 affirm that God has evidently willed most 
 service to man of all His earthly creatures. 
 
 Whatever purposes these two great groups 
 animals and plants may serve, they must 
 be affirmed to exist specially for man, since it 
 is a fact that he forms the culmination of all 
 those different kinds of creatures which have 
 
THE PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE 175 
 
 been caused to exist on the surface of our 
 planet, and, as a fact, derives most service 
 from them. 
 
 As to the end of human life itself, we have 
 already seen that it is and must be the ful- 
 filment of duty the exercise of will accord- 
 ing to the dictates of right reason. There- 
 fore, since the lower forms of life subserve 
 his being, and since the world embodies the 
 will of an Intelligent First Cause, we may, 
 with certainty and without exaggeration, 
 declare that when the first and lowest 
 forms of life made their appearance in the 
 world, their highest conceivable purpose and 
 meaning was to bring about the fulfilment 
 of the moral law a fulfilment bearing fruit 
 beyond the life of which we have experi- 
 ence. 
 
 So much certainly follows as a deduction 
 from the facts and principles which " the 
 helpful science " sets before us. Can mere 
 speculation carry us a step further as to the 
 wherefore of the world's existence? There 
 is one conception which does seem to bring 
 us even nearer to God than the conception 
 
176 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 " duty," and that is " love." Love is the no- 
 blest, most self-sacrificing, most tender, yet 
 most strong, energetic, and unflinching of all 
 human energies, and it is that which binds 
 us to all that is most admirable and beauti- 
 ful in aspect, character, and conduct. 
 
 May we not, then, believe that through it 
 we reach the truest analogy, possible for us, 
 with the ultimate creative purpose of the 
 Divine First Cause an analogy perceptible 
 to us by means of those certain and evident 
 intuitions through which God has deigned 
 to illuminate the intellect of man? Such, 
 if it cannot be said to be the positive teach- 
 ing, would appear to be the most probable 
 suggestion which arises from the various 
 considerations which have been here suc- 
 cessively brought forward, and which de- 
 monstrates the power and dignity of hu- 
 man nature. 
 
 And now, in concluding, I venture to ex- 
 press a hope that the utility and importance 
 of " the helpful science " has been brought 
 home to the minds of such of my readers as 
 may not before have appreciated those qual- 
 
"A COMMON FOUNDATION" 177 
 
 ities as belonging to it. It has, I hope, been 
 clearly shown that the first principles of re- 
 ligion, morals, art, and science, all repose 
 upon a common foundation which the " sci- 
 ence of sciences" makes known to all those 
 who are willing patiently to undertake the 
 needful self-interrogations and observations 
 of things external. 
 
 By the term "a common foundation," how- 
 ever, I am far indeed from meaning thereby 
 that all our knowledge reposes upon any one 
 principle ; which was the error of Descartes 
 and all his numerous followers. " The help- 
 ful science," as it aids us in different kinds of 
 knowledge and different kinds of activity, so 
 itself demands for its support the exercise 
 of very different faculties. 
 
 It reposes on the exercise of our sensitiv- 
 ity, and our sense-perceptions ; on our direct 
 intellectual intuition and the declarations of 
 reflective thought ; on the observation of 
 the bodies which make up the material 
 world, and upon the information we derive 
 from our fellow-men. It is emphatically a 
 human science, and responds to the needs of 
 
I 7 8 THE HELPFUL SCIENCE 
 
 an intellect such as ours, which, wonderful 
 and highly endowed as it is, is none the less 
 essentially limited, as is shown even by the 
 need we so often have of going through proc- 
 esses of reasoning to arrive at truth. Being 
 so limited it needs corresponding aid, and 
 such aid has been duly supplied to it through 
 the ministry of the " helpful science." 
 
 THE END 
 
MENTAL AND MORAL SCIENCE 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS. 
 
 By BORDEN P. BOWNE, Professor of Philosophy in Bos- 
 ton University. 8vo, Cloth, $i 75. 
 
 Shows uncommon clearness, penetration, and breadth of outlook, 
 along with a certain practical good sense which keeps the writer from 
 being tricked by mere words. Advance, Chicago. 
 
 It is written with the clearness and incisiveness of the author's best 
 style, and will clear the minds of many readers of confusion on serious 
 points. FRANKLIN CARTER, President of Williams College. 
 
 METAPHYSICS. 
 
 A Study in First Principles. By BORDEN P. BOWNE. 
 
 Svo, Cloth, $i 75. 
 
 It will take high rank in the philosophical literature of the time. 
 N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 We are free to express the opinion that the work has real value. The 
 conclusions which he reaches will be found especially useful to those who 
 find themselves caught in the drift of materialism. N. Y. Herald. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. 
 
 By BORDEN P. BOWNE. Svo, Cloth, $i 75. 
 
 One of the simplest in statement and clearest in thought of the many 
 works on the subject. Critic, N. Y. 
 
 Epigrammatic terseness and fine scorn are the delightful concomi- 
 tants of lucid reasoning and clear arrangement. Evangelist, N. Y. 
 
 Professor Bowne is an acute and original thinker and profound logi- 
 cian. Albany Press. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY. 
 By BORDEN P. BOWNE. Svo, Cloth, $i 75. 
 
 This is not a dogmatic treatise of empirical psychology, much less a 
 digest of physiological psychology and the fanciful theories that cluster 
 round that shadowy border-land of research, but a series of essays in 
 pure psychology, the basis of the whole performance being facts, not 
 theories. Boston Beacon. 
 
MENTAL AND MORAL SCIENCE 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 By JOHN DEWEY, Ph.D. I2mo, Cloth, $i 25. 
 
 As a philosophical text-book its claims to the recognition of thinkers 
 are very great, while as an exposition of one of the most interesting of 
 sciences it will be a hand-book of inestimable value to students. Com- 
 monwealth, Boston. 
 
 The book, I think, marks a distinct progress on anything, in that 
 department, which has been done in English, in which most writers 
 have really omitted the part of Hamlet in their psychological drama- 
 EDWARD CAIRO, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of 
 Glasgow. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF DEDUCTIVE LOGIC. 
 
 By NOAH K. DAVIS, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy in the University of Virginia. Post 8vo, 
 Cloth, 90 cents. 
 
 The definitions are good, and the expositions of the difficulties of the 
 subject are accomplished with enough fulness to be intelligible without 
 confusion. Independent, N. Y. 
 
 I am not acquainted with any treatise on logic that contains within 
 the same compass so much sound logical doctrine so perspicuously ex- 
 pressed. It would not be difficult to point out in this small work at 
 least half a dozen distinct gains to the science. Professor COLLINS 
 DENNY, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. 
 
 The Elements of Inductive Logic, by the same Author, is 
 in Press. 
 
 THE THEORY OF THOUGHT. 
 
 A Treatise on Deductive Logic. By NOAH K. DAVIS, 
 Ph.D., LL.D. 8vo, Cloth, $2 oo. 
 
 A comprehensive account of the science of Logic from its earliest 
 days, with every variety of example to illustrate the principles. . . . The 
 author is to be commended for his industry, his earnestness, his intelli- 
 gence in the arrangement of his material, and the general excellence of 
 his literary style. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York 
 
 JEP" The above books will be sent to any address in the United States, 
 Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of price. If ordered sent by -mail, 10 
 per cent, should be added for postage. 
 
RETURN TO: CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 198 Main Stacks 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 Home Use 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS. 
 
 Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 Books may be renewed by calling 642-3405. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 DEC 1 1 21 
 
 01 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 50M 6-00 Berkeley, California 94720-6000 
 
224214 
 
 A