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Rh in all things is, is a very different question, and one not easily settled, as the whole history of philosophy shows. It certainly is not water, as Thales maintains. But that there is a universal, some common ground, in all things, this is a truth which forces itself upon us whether we will or not. It is no opinion, no arbitrary excogitation, but a thought which we cannot help thinking, a law or category binding on all intelligence. And the chief merit or value of the philosophy of Thales consists in its having recognised implicitly, for I cannot say that it did so explicitly, the necessity of this truth or law.

13. In estimating, then, the philosophy of Thales according to its general scope, we find the following points to be approved of as philosophical. First, this system inquires after the ultimately real. Secondly, it is a substitution, to some extent, of philosophic thought in the room of the creations of fancy, inasmuch as it is antagonistic to the mythological manner of viewing things. Thirdly, it is a rejection, to some extent, of the authority of the senses as the criterion of truth, and it is the establishment, to some extent, of a new criterion; and, fourthly, it is founded implicitly, though not explicitly, on the recognition of necessary truth, inasmuch as it proceeds on the idea that unity, or a universal, is the ultimately real in all things. These four points contain, I think, all that can be called philosophical in the system of Thales; and these points are gathered; not directly from the