whether Metaphysics is aiming at the impossible, are points which have been and still are tasking the scientific and philosophic world. It has been said that Metaphysics and the high order of poetry meet and mingle, that "the metaphysician is a poet who has lost his vocation, because he is searching for something above facts."

Voltaire said that "Metaphysics constitute the romance of the mind and are more entertaining than geometry, where we have to undergo the perpetual trouble of calculating and measuring, whilst in metaphysics we dream pleasantly.'

Mr. Buckle, in his "Civilization in England," says: "The metaphysical method consists in each observer studying the operations of his own mind. It is a method by which no discovery has ever yet been branch of knowledge.'

made in any

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And Ludwig Buechner, the famous author of "Force and Matter," declares in one of his last works, Sterbelager des Jahrhunderts" ("At the Deathbed of the Century"), that whilst Psychology, Logic, Esthetics, Ethics, Philosophy of Law, and History of Philosophy have a raison d'être, and ought to be studied by the human mind, Metaphysics, as the impossible science of that which is beyond Nature and beyond our senses, must now definitely be relegated to the lumber-room of useless objects.

$3. The term Metaphysics-uerà rà þvσiká (měta ta physica) arose much later than the problems with which it occupies itself. The problems had already been treated by the Ionian philosophers and by Plato, who calls their study Dialectics. Metaphysics deals with that which is beyond or behind nature. The term itself is due to a simple literary accident. Originally it was not applied with this intention. The friends and followers of Aristotle' grouped his investigations concerning the questions about the essence of things, which bore the title of "First Philosophy," and placed them after that part which he had called Physics, and therefore styled it "Metaphysics,' i.e. after Physics. In the old Greek philosophy the line

1 Especially Andronicus of Rhodes.

of demarcation between physical and metaphysical problems was not rigorously drawn. Physics in Greek meant properly what we now understand by Metaphysics. Since then it has been variously defined. Wolff, the German philosopher, styled it "Ontology," the Science of Being, or the Science of the Really Existent, in contradistinction to the Phenomenal or that which is only perceived by the senses. Eduard v. Hartmann treated metaphysical problems under the name of the "Unconscious."

Kant thought that our human reason is so tragically constructed that whilst it sees itself forcibly attracted towards questions beyond that which is revealed by the senses, it is utterly incapable of solving them.

He therefore, in his "Critique of Pure Reason," demanded that before entering upon metaphysical problems, a preliminary research of our human understanding and power should be made. (His system is called Criticism.)

In England, the country of common sense, metaphysical speculations were with few exceptions (Berkeley principally) not favoured.

In a subsequent chapter I shall deal with the various metaphysical problems and the schools that endeavoured to solve them.

CHAPTER III

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

§ 1. THE objects of human research are either "nature" in its narrower sense, i.e. the system of things visible to us which is comprehended in the word world, or “mind,” i.e. the power which is capable of perceiving, knowing, and reflecting upon that very world. Things revealed to us by our senses attract our attention in preference to abstract conceptions which are only the result of more mature reflection, when the mind is already capable of turning into and reflecting upon itself. The child remembers first the names of things that are distinguished by their colour, heaviness, sound, etc.—in a word, those that appeal to the senses. Nations in their early state of culture are children in their ideas. The growth of national thought proceeds on the same lines as the mental development of any individual human being. Language illustrates this. Language is the expression of sensuous perceptions. It gives names and assigns definitions to what is revealed to us by our senses or conceived by our powers of reflection and understanding. Now, the science of language has proved that the names for concrete objects, of whose existence we become aware through our senses, have been formed much earlier than the words by which we define the acts of seeing, hearing, etc., themselves. The earliest philosophical researches turned therefore towards visible matter, i.e. the aggregation of things called the world. Their chief problems were: What is all that vast crowd of appearances which we perceive, all the natural phenomena that so often change and assume so many new changes? What is the substance, element, or

matter that constitutes their basis and remains constant under all these various changes? These questions form the subject-matter of the philosophy of nature, as distinguished from the philosophy of mind.

§ 2. Plato has laid down his ideas on the subject in a treatise entitled "Timæus." Plato clearly stated the distinction between the physical and the metaphysical; nature was the realm of becoming as distinct from that of being. Aristotle's conception of nature and his Philosophy of Nature is contained chiefly in his work Tà Dvouká ("Physics"). In modern times, however, this part of Philosophy has been termed Cosmology, and Physics forms a part of it. The human mind before reflecting upon itself turned its gaze, during the first stage of its development and growth, to the outer world, i.e. to nature and its investigation. Nature is a unity manifesting itself in a plurality of forms, and from the very beginning of its existence the human race has tried to discover the permanent law underlying the continual change. Το recognize the fundamental element that lies hidden under the phenomena is the aim and purport of the Philosophy of Nature. The earliest philosophers of Greece-Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, turned their attention to these questions. Some of them maintained that the basis of all the phenomenal changes is water; others thought it was air. The earliest Greek philosophers are therefore called Natural Philosophers, i.e. they reflected upon matter as disguised or as revealed to our senses. They were the first to start the journey upon the thorny road to truth, and naturally proceeded slowly and hesitatingly, endeavouring to explain the plurality of the phenomena, to rise above the vulgar errors of the senses, and to conceive the world as a unity. Whilst, however, the Metaphysics of the Ionian philosophers springs from Physics, that of the Pythagoreans is grafted on Mathematics. The former were interested in matter and its eternal movement, the latter were impressed by the order which prevails in the world, by the unity, proportion, and harmony in its contrasts, the mathematical relations underlying all things. Everything in geometry, in astronomy, and in music is ultimately reduced to number.

Number is the innermost essence and the principle of the world: things are sensible numbers. Whilst a number is the essence of things, unity is the essence of number.' In the Middle Ages, when Catholicism held full sway, the study of nature was neglected. Faith, absolute, blind faith, the reflection of the spirit upon itself and communion with the absolute, were the predominant features, and there was no room for natural studies and the fleeting earthly questions of an ephemeral existence. Nay, a sort of contempt arose for such studies, which consequently became very rare. With Protestantism the spirit of freedom arose. The discovery of new countries aided it greatly. The study of ancient Philosophy was revived, and Galileo, Kepler, Bruno, and others turned their minds to the study of the universe, or Kosmos, which resulted in great discoveries. The planet upon which we live was found to be nothing but "a little speck revolving round one of the many suns that are scattered in space like so many sand-grains in the desert. Natural science, however, was still intermingled and interwoven with Philosophy of Nature. Even the philosophers Descartes

and Wolff made no distinction between the two. Neither did Newton draw any line of demarcation. Only with the celebrated book "Système de la Nature" (1770: published under the name of Mirabaud, but the real author of which was Baron Holbach), and especially with Kant and Schelling, the distinction between Philosophy of Nature and Natural Philosophy became manifest. Since then natural science has gone its own way, making gigantic strides, while the Philosophy of Nature is, strictly speaking, limited to metaphysical questions or to the investigations of the causes whose effects are the discoveries of natural science. Thus the Philosophy of Nature examines the conceptions such as force, energy, matter, motion, life, etc., which form the subject-matter of natural science.

It is altogether unhistorical to attribute the Pythagorean doctrines to Pythagoras, who lived in the sixth century B. C. As far as we know of his life, he founded a kind of religion or brotherhood, and was a man of grand ethical and political efficiency. Neither Aristotle nor Plato speaks of the teachings of Pythagoras, but of the Pythagoreans.