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40 facts, are, it must be confessed, unsatisfactory enough. They are, indeed, utterly worthless. Considered as a statement of facts, the system has no interest whatever, either physical or philosophical. The facts are not true, and the explanations explain nothing; but even though the facts were true, and the explanations explanatory, they would be of no speculative value, for they are merely a description of the universe according to sense, and not according to reason.

11. To see any merit in this early system we must turn away from it in its dogmatic form; we must let it go as a statement of fact, and must look merely to its general spirit and tendency. When we look to this, we are able to rate at a higher value these inefficient essays in philosophy. The very conception of reducing the diversified exuberance, the infinite plenitude, of nature to the unity of one principle, showed a speculative boldness which proved that a new intellectual era was dawning on mankind. To perceive that truth was to be found in the one, and not in the many, was no insignificant discovery. To be convinced that a thread of simplicity ran through all the complex phenomena of the universe was the inauguration of a new epoch—was a great step taken in advance of all that had gone before—was, in fact, the very first movement which gave birth to science among men. This incipient generalisation, or tendency to generalise, as we see it put forth in these old philosophies, is the earliest attempt made by the