THEORY OF KNOWING.
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PROP. XXI.————
Fruitlessness of the controversy respecting the Absolute and the Relative. The philosophical temper.question concerning the Absolute and the Relative,—the one party espousing virtually, although expressing themselves in no very clear or explicit terms, Propositions XX. and XXI.,—the other party advocating the opinions set forth in the corresponding counter-propositions. The one party ranks under the banner of metaphysics,—the other under the standard of psychology. The controversy, however, has been altogether fruitless on both sides. The absolutists have defined nothing, and have proved nothing, and their positions, however true, have been generally unintelligible. The relationists, too, have merely declaimed and asserted, without advancing either definitions or demonstrations, and hence the controversy has terminated—as all such controversies must—in a mere hubbub of words, by which nothing is settled, and from which the student of philosophy can derive neither insight, nor edification, nor that satisfaction of mind which always arises when we understand a philosophical doctrine, whether we agree with it or not. This, indeed, is all that metaphysical teaching ought to aim at,—to make people understand its positions. To make these positions convincing is a point of vastly inferior importance, and one which may very well be left to take its chance. Our psychologists, however, rather labour at the establishment of some hazy sort of belief in their own dogmas, than at the diffusion of universal light
