102 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

To some of our readers these remarks and queries may

seem superfluous or even idle. Such, however, is by no

means the case, as the same readers will clearly see if they

will have patience to peruse this volume to its close. The

truths which to them may seem so obvious and undeniable

that their enumeration is unnecessary, are truths which have

been denied, and are denied by men of very considerable

intellectual distinction. For our purpose, that is, to obtain a

correct view as to Epistemology, it is extremely necessary to

recognize the fact that we cannot follow science if we either,

really and truly, doubt the possibility of certainty, or the

actual certainty of a greater or less number of facts and

principles, the truth of which every science, whatever it may

be, necessarily implies.

Provisionally recognizing, then, the fact of our continued

existence, as vouched for by memory (*>., till in our

eighth chapter the question is more fully discussed), and

recognizing the fact of the existence of an external world,

the components of which stand in various active and causal

relations to each other and to us, we have next to consider

a matter hardly less momentous. This is the bearing of

scientific progress on the question of the validity of the

process of inference. The remark need hardly be made

that no science has been developed or could be made to

progress without it. A direct knowledge of events, facts, and

their relations, sufficiently complete to constitute any one

of the sciences, would be too vast in extent to be possible

for the human mind.

It is conceivable that other beings, endowed with much

greater and more far-reaching intellectual powers, might be

able to perceive, by direct intuition, all that we a i- e able

laboriously to attain to by indirect processes of inference.

However that may be, ratiocination is necessary for us (being

no better endowed than we are), and every man of science

To some of our readers these remarks and queries may

seem superfluous or even idle. Such, however, is by no

means the case, as the same readers will clearly see if they

will have patience to peruse this volume to its close. The

truths which to them may seem so obvious and undeniable

that their enumeration is unnecessary, are truths which have

been denied, and are denied by men of very considerable

intellectual distinction. For our purpose, that is, to obtain a

correct view as to Epistemology, it is extremely necessary to

recognize the fact that we cannot follow science if we either,

really and truly, doubt the possibility of certainty, or the

actual certainty of a greater or less number of facts and

principles, the truth of which every science, whatever it may

be, necessarily implies.

Provisionally recognizing, then, the fact of our continued

existence, as vouched for by memory (*>., till in our

eighth chapter the question is more fully discussed), and

recognizing the fact of the existence of an external world,

the components of which stand in various active and causal

relations to each other and to us, we have next to consider

a matter hardly less momentous. This is the bearing of

scientific progress on the question of the validity of the

process of inference. The remark need hardly be made

that no science has been developed or could be made to

progress without it. A direct knowledge of events, facts, and

their relations, sufficiently complete to constitute any one

of the sciences, would be too vast in extent to be possible

for the human mind.

It is conceivable that other beings, endowed with much

greater and more far-reaching intellectual powers, might be

able to perceive, by direct intuition, all that we a i- e able

laboriously to attain to by indirect processes of inference.

However that may be, ratiocination is necessary for us (being

no better endowed than we are), and every man of science