Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/65

THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY. 53 was justified of many children. The towers were, some of them, very fine specimens of architecture. But as for reach- ing heaven, never was there a more disastrous exemplifica- tion of the Protagorean irdvrwv pe-rpov avdpa)7ro<t. That famous unit of measurement was applied to the universe, and the universe appeared incommensurable. It was a circle which refused to be squared. Xow observe, in one sense it is no assumption and in- volves no fallacy, to apply the Trdvrow fierpov av6p(07ro<f, for it is not in man's power to do otherwise, he has no alternative course. But it is a very different thing to formulate the irdvrwv perpov avdpwTrof, to assign the mode in which self- consciousness is identical with its objects, and make that formula the basis of your reasoning. You are then making a real assumption ; assuming the truth of your formula, and applying it a priori to experience. This is what the post- Kaiitian ontologists did. They applied a formulation of the TrdvTtov itirpov avOpwTros to measure and construct the uni- verse. Hegel, for instance, assumes an agency, subjective in kind, working by the Principle of Contradiction, an agency of Thought which he calls Dialectic ; Schopenhauer an agency, subjective in kind, which he calls Will ; and both being exhibited as the constructive agencies of the Universe. The towers built by these measurements may be seen standing unto this day, in isolated and helpless magnificence. The builders have not scaled heaven ; they have not measured infinity ; they have not read the riddle of the universe ; they have, like Frankenstein, created in their own image a Xotinirnon which mocks them. Yet still they build. " More Towers " is still the cry. Von Hartrnann's is still in progress. Truly a disheartening spectacle, especially when we con- sider that the cause of the builders is ours, that it is our business as well as theirs, being the business of philosophy, to render the universe luminous and intelligible to human thought ; still more when we think that in speculation must be laid the basis for agreement in action, in all departments of human activity, religious, ethical, social, and political, if indeed such an agreement is ever to be attained. The im- portance of the service which philosophy can and ought to render to mankind can hardly be overrated ; but this does not mean that philosophy can ever play a large or con- spicuous part in human affairs. Remember the fable of the Lion and the Mouse. Philosophy is to human nature as a whole, with all its purposes and its struggles, the mouse which gnaws through the meshes of the hunter's net which holds the lion in its toils. But it is not the time to dwell