Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/67

THE METAPHYSICAL METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY. ")"> genuine instance of what is known as the Realism of the Middle Ages. So far as at present appears, Hume wa^ right ; we are as far as ever from any knowledge of. what constitutes causal agency. Considerations like the foregoing have led me to the con- clusion, that we must make a radical change in our method of philosophising. Instead of having recourse in the first instance to an hypothesis in order to explain the genesis of experience, the genesis of matter, or the genesis of both together indistinguishably, hypotheses, which, from the very terms of the problem so stated, must transcend, or have their object prior to, the things they are employed to account for, we must have recourse in the first instance to experience itself, and see what its content is, apart from any hypothesis of its cause or mode of production. The con- ception of cause itself is a part of experience ; and thus to assume it as per se noturn to account for unanalysed experi- ence is to make an unknown account for an unknown, the distinction between them being unknown also. Moreover, since hypotheses can be adopted only when we have formed some notion, true or false, of what those things are, the origin of which is to be accounted for, and which they are adapted to explain, it follows that, if this notion is untrue, it operates like a foregone conclusion in argument, leading us first to look for our hypothesis in a wrong direction, and then to manipulate the original data into conformity with the hypothesis we have adopted. What I say then is this, Throw yourself frankly on ex- perience. Be not afraid of its misleading you, if only you can get it pure, without admixture of self-made puzzles. Experience without leading-strings is the thing to trust to. But at the same time it is most difficult to get, since we put it into leading-strings involuntarily and unwittingly. Ex- perience without leading-strings is the thing to aim at and work for. We have after all no other source, no other test, of knowledge. Hypotheses will not alter facts. Whatever the facts be, let us face them. In one word, have faith in the order of the universe. To go simply to experience is, in a humble but very real sense, to exercise faith. It is cheer- fully accepting an unknown future, in preference to insisting on our present notion of it. We must give up, not pro- fessedly only but actually, our most subtil, familiar, and insinuating imaginations, if we hope to attain truth. Truth is like Shakespere's Portia, listening to no suitor till he has proved his sincerity by selecting the leaden casket inscribed with the words, Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he