Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/101

 HENBY SIDGWICK, Philosophy, Its Scope and Relations. ^1 answer. . . . The interest of the questions is too profound to allow them to be simply ignored : so that even those philosophers who refuse to ask the questions have to give a reason for their refusal " (pp. 78-79). A definition of metaphysics is arrived at by contrast with the generalisations of the physical sciences, of empirical psychology and even such cosmic generalisations as the doctrine of the conservation of energy or the theory of evolution, all of which, even while claiming to be universally true, profess to rest on verification by particular empirical cognitions. Sidgwick's definition, therefore, is almost verbally identical with Kant's, although few men in the main stream of modern thought have been less under the influence of the Critical philosophy. " Meta- physics aims at ascertaining what, if anything, can be known of Matter, Mind, and their relations, besides such knowledge as is based upon or verifiable by particular empirical cognitions : that is, what can be known a priori and what can be known as neces- sary or universal elements or conditions of Mind and Cognition " (p. 90). The phrase ' verifiable by particular empirical cognitions ' was adopted to meet the case of the Transcendental Method it- self; for inquiries proceeding according to that method would certainly claim to be ' verifiable by experience ' inasmuch as its results are got by reflexion upon the nature of experience as a whole, and yet they are obviously to be classed under the head of Metaphysics. The short discussion of Transcendentalism which follows and the appended note on ' Transcendentalism and Ideal- ism ' are perhaps the least profitable part of the volume. Trans- cendentalism is a method of approaching philosophical questions rather than any single definite theory. 1 Sidgwick appears to connect it exclusively with the question of the ' reality ' of space and time. "I am not convinced," he says, "by the arguments tending to show that Time and Space, Motion and Change are unreal and merely apparent." But surely the alternative here suggested is misleading. I should myself agree with him when he declares his inability ' ' to form any clear, useful or definite concep- tion of Eeality out of Time and Space " ; but for all that Time and Space are still forms of thought, and the fact that they are forms of thought does not make them ' unreal ' ; Transcendentalism in the largest sense is simply a method of demonstrating that reality is rational. We do not get here, however, anything beyond a summary statement of Sidgwick's personal position in regard to ' transcendentalism generally '. A fuller discussion of the subject, in connexion with the theory of T. H. Green, is promised in a volume of ethical papers already announced for publication. Epistemology and Ontology are treated as complementary aspects or functions, rather than separate divisions, of Metaphysics, " for, in .the main, when we have decided the most important epistem- 1 1 admit, however, that Transcendental Idealism, as a technical term of the Kantian system has a specific reference to the doctrine of the subjectivity of Space and Time.