Page:Journal of Speculative Philosophy Volume 17.djvu/66

Rh Century to penetrate, and one which, if mastered, will put an end to all the idle speculation which is supposed to have disgraced the philosophical thought of the past, and turn intellectual activity into the fruitful fields of real knowledge.

The doctrine has been reached in at least four different ways, and held by as many schools. There is the Positivist, who claims to have reached the doctrine as the result of history, and not from any system of Metaphysics, and who is among the loudest in proclaiming it the panacea for all ills which intellect is heir to. There is the school who profess to have reached it from a philosophical examination of thought itself, and to have found it involved in " imbecilities " at every attempt to overstep phenomena — the school whose chief representative is Hamilton, but more lately given to calling up the greater shade of Kant to conjure by. Then there is the Associationalist, who, after Hume had made wreck of Sensationalism by showing that its methods and presuppositions left no basis for any objective knowledge — no, nor for objective existence either — had before him the sorry task of keeping the method and yet avoiding the result. His instrument was the "association of ideas," and by it he attempted to reach results compatible with every-day thought and the established facts of physical science. But to whatever extent he succeeded (and we are not concerned with that question at present), he found himself confined within the limits of his subjective capacity for association, and he, too, took Relativity for his shibboleth.

But with the development of the theory of evolution arose a school that wielded a mightier weapon. Here was an established scientific theory which assumed objective existence, and also, in one of its highest generalizations, included man, and showed that he, and presumably his intellect and knowledge, had in the progress of the cycles been developed from these original existences and forces. Here, then, is a theory which, in a certain form, may deny all creating and constructive thought, and consequently be thoroughly sensationalistic. Furthermore, by extending indefinitely the sphere and time of operations, it bridged the gaps and strengthened the weak points of former sensationalism ; and, above all, it postulated objective existence. Here, then, is a theory which may satisfy the demands of physical science and of "common-sense" as to existence independent of subjective feeling; pay