It is a

name for something known for that
which appears to us under the forms of
extension, solidity, divisibility, figure,
motion, roughness, smoothness, color,
heat, cold," etc. "But," he goes on to
say, "as these phenomena appear only in
conjunction, we are compelled by the
constitution of our nature to think them
conjoined in and by something; and as
they are phenomena, we cannot think
them the phenomena of nothing, but must
regard them as the properties or qualities
of something that is extended, figured,
etc. But this something, absolutely and
in itself -- i.e., considered apart from its
phenomena - is to us as zero.
It is only
in its qualities, only in its effects, in its
relative or phenomenal existence, that it
is cognizable or conceivable; and it is
only by a law of thought which compels
us to think something absolute and un-
known, as the basis or condition of the
relative and known, that this something
obtains a kind of incomprehensible reality
to us." The argument here is that be-
cause phenomena are and must be the
'properties or qualities of something
else," therefore we are "compelled to
think" of that something as having an
existence separable from any relation to
its own qualities and properties, and that
this something acquires from this reason-
ing a "kind of incomprehensible reality"!
There is no such law of thought. There
is no such necessity of thinking nonsense
as is here alleged. All that we are com-
pelled to think is that the ultimate consti-
tution of matter, and the ultimate source
of its relations to our own organism, are
unknown, and are probably inaccessible
to us. But this is a very different con-
ception from that which affirms that if we
did know or could know these ultimate
truths we should find in them anything
standing absolutely alone and unrelated
to other existences in the universe.

probably are a great many relations which | trated than by quoting the words in which we have not faculties enabling us to con- this favorite doctrine is expressed by Sir ceive. All this is quite true, and a most William Hamilton. Speaking of our important truth. But the metaphysical knowledge of matter he says: distinction is quite different. It affirms that if we knew things in every one of the relations that affect them, we should still be no nearer than before to a knowledge of "things in themselves." "It is proper to observe," says Sir W. Hamilton, "that had we faculties equal in number to all the possible modes of existence, whether of mind or matter, still would our knowledge of mind or matter be only relative. If material existence could exhibit ten thousand phenomena, if we possessed ten thousand senses to apprehend these ten thousand phenomena of material existence, of existence absolutely and in itself we should then be as ignorant as we are at present."* The conception here is that there is something to be known about things in which they are not presented as in any relation to anything else. It affirms that there are certain ultimate entities in nature to which all phenomena are due, and yet which can be thought of as having no relation to these phenomena, or to ourselves, or to any other existence what ever. Now, as the very idea of knowledge consists in the perception of relations, this affirmation is, in the purest sense of the word, nonsense that is to say, it is a series of words which have either no meaning at all or a meaning which is selfcontradictory. It belongs to the class of propositions which throw just discredit on metaphysics mere verbal propositions, pretending to deal with conceptions which are no conceptions at all, but empty sounds. The "unconditioned," we are told, "is unthinkable: " but words which are unthinkable had better be also unspeakable, or at least unspoken. It is altogether untrue that we are compelled to believe in the existence of anything which is "unconditioned" in matter with no qualities - in minds with no character in a God with no attributes. Even the metaphysicians who dwell on this distinction between the relative and It is, however, so important that we the unconditioned admit that it is one to should define to ourselves as clearly as which no idea can be attached. Yet, in we can the nature of the limitations which spite of this admission, they proceed to affect our knowledge, and the real inferfound many inferences upon it, as if it ences which are to be derived from the had an intelligible meaning. Those who consciousness we have of them, that it have not been accustomed to metaphysi- may be well to examine these dicta of cal literature could hardly believe the metaphysicians in the light of specific flagrant unreason which is common on instances. It becomes all the more imthis subject. It cannot be better illus-portant to do so when we observe that the

* Lectures, vol. i., p. 145.

66

language in which these dicta are expressed generally implies that knowledge

which is "only relative" is less genuine | can be thought of or conceived as neither or less absolutely true than some other a cause nor a consequence, but solitary kind of knowledge which is not explained, and unrelated. On the contrary, all that except that it must be knowledge of that which has no relation to the mind.

There is a sense (and it is the only sense in which the words have any meaning) in which we are all accustomed to say that we know a thing“ in itself," when we have found out, for example, its origin, or its structure, or its chemical composition, as distinguished from its more superficial aspects. If a new substance were offered to us as food, and if we examined its appearance to the eye, and felt its consistency to the touch, and smelt its odor, and finally tasted it, we should then know as much about it as these various senses

remains unexplained is the nature and cause of its relations—its relations on the one hand to the elements out of which vegetable vitality has combined it, and its relations on the other hand to the still higher vitality which it threatens to destroy. Its place in the unity of nature is the ultimate object of our search, and this unity is essentially a unity of relations, and of nothing else. That unity everywhere proclaims the truth that there is nothing in the wide universe which is unrelated to the rest.

Let us take another example. Until modern science had established its methods of physical investigation, light and sound were known as sensations only. That is to say, they were known in terms of the mental impressions which they immediately produce upon us, and in no other terms whatever. There was no proof that in these sensations we had any knowledge "in themselves" of the external agencies which produce them. But now all this is changed. Science has discovered what these two agencies are "in themselves;" that is to say, it has defined them under aspects which are totally distinct from seeing or hearing, and is able to describe them in terms ad

could tell us. Other senses, or other forms of sensation, might soon add their own several contributions to our knowledge, and we might discover that this substance had deleterious effects upon the human organism. This would be knowing, perhaps, by far the most important things that are to be known about it. But we should certainly like to know more, and we should probably consider that we had found out what it was "in itself," when we had discovered farther, for example, that it was the fruit of a tree. Chemistry might next inform us of the analysis of the fruit, and might exhibit some alkaloid to which its peculiar prop-dressed to wholly different faculties of erties and its peculiar effects upon the body are due. This, again, we should certainly consider as knowing what it is "in itself." But other questions respecting it would remain behind. How the tree can extract this alkaloid from the inorganic elements of the soil, and how, when so extracted, it should have such and such peculiar effects upon the animal body, these, and similar questions, we may ask, and probably we shall ask in vain. But there is nothing in the inaccessibility of this knowledge to suggest that we are absolutely incapable of understanding the answer if it were explained to us. On the contrary, the disposition we have to put such questions raises a strong presumption that the answer would be one capable of that assimilation by our intellectual nature in which all understanding of anything consists. There is nothing in the series of phenomena which this substance has exhibited to us nothing in the question which they raise - which can even suggest the idea that all these relations which we have traced, or any others which may remain behind, are the result of something which

are

conception. Both light and sound are in
the nature of undulatory movements in
elastic media - to which undulations our
organs of sight and hearing are respec-
tively adjusted or "attuned." In these
organs, by virtue of that adjustment or
attuning, these same undulations
"translated" into the sensations which
we know. It thus appears that the facts
as described to us in this language of sen-
sation are the true equivalent of the facts
as described in the very different lan-
guage of intellectual analysis. The eye
is now understood to be an apparatus for
enabling the mind instantaneously to
appreciate differences of motion which
are of almost inconceivable minuteness.
The pleasure we derive from the har-
monies of color and of sound, although
mere sensations, do correctly represent
the movement of undulations in a definite
order; whilst those other sensations which
we know as discords represent the actual
clashing and disorder of interfering waves.
In breathing the healthy air of physical
discoveries such as these, although the
limitations of our knowledge continually
haunt us, we gain nevertheless a trium

phant sense of its certainty and of its | come from luminous bodies. This was a truth. Not only are the mental impres- relation - but a relation of the vaguest sions, which our organs have been so con- and most general kind. As compared structed as to convey, a true interpretation with this vague relation the new relation of external facts, but the conclusions we under which we know them is knowledge draw as to their origin and their source, of a more definite and of a higher kind. and as to the guarantee we have for the Light and sound we now know to be accuracy of our conceptions, are placed on words or ideas representing not merely the firmest of all foundations. The any one thing or any two things, but espemirror into which we look is a true mirror, cially a relation of adjustment between a reflecting accurately and with infinite fine- number of things. In this adjustment ness the realities of nature. And this light and sound, as known to sense, do great lesson is being repeated in every "in themselves" consist. Sound becomes new discovery, and in every new applica- known to us as the attunement between tion of an old one. Every reduction of certain aerial pulsations and the auditory phenomena to ascertained measures of apparatus. Light becomes known to us force; every application of mathematical as a similar or analogous attunement beproof to theoretical conceptions; every tween the ethereal pulsations and the detection of identical operations in diverse optic apparatus. Sound in this sense is departments of nature; every subjection not the aerial waves "in themselves," but of material agencies to the service of in their relation to the ear. Light is not mankind; every confirmation of knowl- the ethereal undulations "in themselves," edge acquired through one sense by the but in their relation to the eye. It is only evidence of another, every one of these when these come into contact with a preoperations adds to the verifications of arranged machinery that they become science, confirms our reasonable trust in what we know and speak of as light and the faculties we possess, and assures us sound. This conception, therefore, is that the knowledge we acquire by the found to represent and express a pure careful use of these is a real and substan- relation; and it is a conception_higher tial knowledge of the truth. than the one we had before, not because it is either less or more relative, but because its relativity is to a higher faculty of the intellect or the understanding.

If now we examine the kind of knowledge respecting light and sound which recent discoveries have revealed to us, as compared with the knowledge which we And indeed, when we come to think of had of them before these discoveries it, we see that all kinds of knowledge were made, we shall find that there is an must take their place and rank according important difference. The knowledge to this order of precedence. For as all which we had before was the simple and knowledge consists in the establishment elementary knowledge of sensation. As of relations between external facts and compared with that knowledge the new the various faculties of the mind, the knowledge we have acquired respecting highest knowledge must always be that light and sound is a knowledge of these in which such relations are established things "in themselves." Such is the lan- with those intellectual powers which are guage in which we should naturally ex- of the highest kind. Hence we have a press our sense of that difference, and in strictly scientific basis of classification so expressing it we should be expressing for arranging the three great subjects of an important truth. The newer knowl- all human inquiry-the what, the how, edge is a higher knowledge than the older and the whence or why. These are steps and simpler knowledge which we had in an ascending series. What things are, before. And why? Wherein does this how they come to be, and for what purhigher quality of the new knowledge con- pose they are intended in the whole syssist? Is it not in the very fact that the tem of nature - these are the questions, new knowledge is the perception of a each rising above the other, which correhigher kind of relation than that which spond to the order and the rank of our we had perceived before? There is no own faculties in the value and importance difference between the two kinds of of their work. knowledge in respect to the mere abstract It is the result of this analysis to estabcharacter of relativity. The old was as lish that, even if it were true that there relative as the new; and the new is as could be anything in the universe existing relative as the old. Before the new dis-out of relation with other things around coveries sound was known to come from it, or if it were conceivable that there sonorous bodies, and light was known to could be any knowledge of things as they

From The Cornhill Magazine. FINA'S AUNT.

so exist, it would be not higher knowl-
edge, but infinitely lower knowledge than
that which we actually possess. It could sOME PASSAGES FROM MISS WILLIAMSON'S

at the best be only knowledge of the
"what," and that too in the lowest con-
ceivable form-knowledge of the barest,
driest, nakedest existence, without value
or significance of any kind. And further,
it results from the same analysis that the
relativity of human knowledge, instead
of casting any doubt upon its authenticity,
is the very characteristic which guaran-
tees its reality and its truth. It results
further that the depth and completeness
of that knowledge depends on the degree
in which it brings the facts of nature into
relation with the highest faculties of
mind.

It must be so if man is part of the great
system of things in which he lives. It
must be so, especially if in being part of
it, he is also the highest visible part of it
the product of its "laws" and (as re-
gards his own little corner of the universe)
the consummation of its history.

DIARY.
I.

From Miss Sophy King in Switzerland to Miss Williamson in Old Street, London, W.

Your

"DEAREST MISS WILLIAMSON, two letters have come flying through the ravines and over the waterfalls, and the sunlight on the plains and the half-way storms, and through all the freshness as well as the less agreeable whiffs from the village. We are very comfortably en camped at our hotel; mamma is wonderfully well for her. My father is in Scotland, but we are not lonely, and have found several friends here. Chief among them are your friends the Arnheims, who only went down to Interlaken this morning we follow on Monday. Mr. Arnheim has an engagement to play at the concerts there. Fina, the little girl, has started up Nor can there be any doubt as to what wonderfully, and reaches her father's are the supreme faculties of the human shoulder. I told her I should be writing mind. The power of initiating changes to you, and she sent you her love and in the order of nature and of shaping begged me to tell you that she mends her them from the highest motives to the father's clothers now, and adds up the noblest ends this, in general terms, bills, and keeps all the money. She has may be said to include or to involve them grown very like her poor mother, whom I all. They are based upon the ultimate remember seeing at your lodgings in Old and irresolvable power of will, with such Street. I wonder if those very disagreefreedom as belongs to it; upon the fac-able people, her relations, are living near ulty of understanding the use of means to ends, and upon the moral sense which recognizes the law of righteousness, and the ultimate authority on which it rests. If the universe or any part of it is ever to be really understood by us-if any thing in the nature of an explanation is ever to be reached concerning the system of things in which we live, these are the perceptive powers to which the information must be given — these are the faculties to which the explanation must be addressed. When we desire to know the nature of things "in themselves," we desire to know the highest of their relations which are conceivable to us: we desire, in the words of Bishop Butler, to know "the Author, the cause, and the end of them.”*

* Sermon "On the Ignorance of Man,"

you still; that pompous Miss Ellis and the colonel, and the silent younger sister and the delightful old lady; and I wonder if you, too, are in your usual corner, where I can see you as plainly as I can see mamma in her chair on the terrace opposite. This is written from a broad green balcony overhung with clematis ; all the people come out of the diningroom and sit here to look at the mountains.

"The day the Arnheims were here they took me out for a long day in the mountains. Mr. Arnheim led the way, Fina and I followed. One cannot talk, but one goes on climbing ever through changing lights, from one height to another, higher and higher still. We left autumn at the foot of the mountain, and after a time found ourselves in summer and spring once more. Far above, striking the blue sky, hung winter snows and crystals, but round us was spring. A flood of fragrant Alpine flowers spread by every rocky ridge, along every Alp and plateau, rho, dodendrons crimson incandescent; violets and saxifrage, and light iris lilies with a