by metaphysicians, who would see something which the vulgar cannot discern, whereas they should be contented with unfolding the nature of what all men perceive. It is quite conceivable, and perfectly possible, that, though we should know all about any given material or spiritual object, we should after all not fall in with anything more mysterious or deep than those wonders which come every day under our notice in the world without, or the world within us. CHAPTER IX. BEING. THE abstract notion of Being is one which the mind is not much disposed to fashion. As to many other abstractions, it is led naturally to form them; they are framed for it, or it is compelled by the circumstances in which it is placed to frame them. Thus I see an individual with a black coat one day, and with a gray coat the next, and I cannot but separate the man from his clothing. But in such high abstractions as Being, that which we contemplate is never, in fact, separated from any one thing. Still Being is an abstraction which we are constrained to make for philosophic purposes, and it was, in fact, formed so early as the age of the speculators of the Eleatic School. It is the one thing to be found objectively in all our knowledge. Hence in all our abstractions it is that which remains; in the ascending process of generalization it is the summum genus. This does not prove that Being can exist apart from a special mode of existence, or the exercise of some quality. Nor does it prove that we can know Being separate from a concrete existence. I hold the one as well as the other of these to be impossible. But in all knowledge we know what we know as having existence, which is Being. I cannot give my adhesion to the opinion of those who speak so strongly of man being incapacitated to know Being. I have already intimated my dissent from the Kantian doctrine that we do not know things, but ap pearances; and even from the theory of those Scottish metaphysicians who affirm that we do not know things, but qualities. What we know is the thing manifesting itself to us, is the thing exercising particular qualities. But then it is confidently asserted by Kantians that we do not know the "thing in itself." The language, I rather think, is unmeaning; but if it has a meaning, it is incorrect. I do not believe that there is any such thing in existence as Being in itself, or that man can even so much as imagine it; and if this be so, it is clear that we cannot know it, and desirable that we should not suppose that we know it. Of this I am sure, that those Neo-Platonists who professed to be able to rise to the discovery of Being in itself (which could only be the abstract idea of Being), and to be employed in gazing on it, had miserably bare and most unprofitable matter of meditation, whether for intellectual, or moral, or religious ends. But if any one mean to deny that we can know Being as it is, I maintain in opposition to him, and I appeal to consciousness to confirm me when I say, that we immediately know Being in every act of cognition. But then we are told that we cannot know the mystery of Being. I am under a strong impression that speculators have attached a much greater amount of profundity to this simple subject than really belongs to it. Of this I am sure, that much of the obscurity which has collected around it has sprung from the confused discussions of metaphysicians, who have labored to explain what needs no explanation to our intelligence, or to seek a basis on which to build what stands securely on its own foundation. I do indeed most fully admit that there may be much about Being which we do not know; much about Being generally, much about every individual Being, unknown to us and unknowable in this world. Still I do affirm that we know Being as Being, and that any further knowledge conveyed to us would not set aside our present knowledge, but would simply enlarge it. CHAPTER X. EXTENSION. THE knowledge of extension is involved in every exercise of sense-perception, even as the knowledge of personality is implied in every exercise of self-conscious ness. - We certainly cannot employ the senses of sight and muscular energy, we cannot, I believe, perceive through any of the senses, without knowing the object, be it the organism or something affecting the organism, as possessing extension, — always along with other qualities. This, then, is historically the origin of our idea of space, that is, we have a perception of it in every cognition of body. But in this primitive knowledge we do not apprehend it as distinct from body. It is an extended and a colored surface, which we know through the eye; it is an extended body capable of resisting us, which we know through the muscular sense and locomotive energy; it is a set of organs localized and out of each other, that we know by the other senses. But by an easy intellectual act we can separate the extension from the impenetrability and the associated sensations. We are greatly aided in our apprehensions of empty space by certain exercises of sense-perception. For we have experience ever presenting itself of two bodies seen or felt, with nothing between obvious to the senses. True, scientific research shows that the interval is not a pure vacuum, that there is air, or ether, between the bodies; still it is in our apprehension a void, that is, a space, with no perceived body to fill it. We are thus led to an apprehension of space as different |