And yet by the very nature of our intelligence we are compelled continuallyto ascribe the effects we know to some cause we do not know -- to regardthe manifestations we are conscious of as implying something manifested.
We find it impossible to think of the world as constituted of appearances,and to exclude all thought of a reality of which they are appearances. Theinconsistencies in the views set forth are in fact organic. Intellectualaction being a perpetual forming of relations between the states from momentto moment passing, and being incapable of arresting itself, tends irresistiblyto form them when it reaches the limit of intelligence. The inevitable effectof our mental constitution is that on reaching the limit thought rushes outto form a new relation and cannot form it. A conflict hence arises betweenan effort to pass into the Unknowable and an inability to pass -- a conflictwhich involves the inconsistency of feeling obliged to think something andbeing unable to think it.
And here we come as before to the conclusion that while it is impossiblefor us to have a conception, there yet ever remains a consciousness -- aconsciousness of which no logical account can be given, but which is thenecessary result of our mental action; since the perpetually-foiled endeavourto think the relation between Appearance and Reality, ever leaves behinda feeling that though a second term cannot be framed in thought yet thereis a second term. This distinction, here emphasized as it was emphasizedin §26, my critics have ignored. Their arguments are directed againstone or other elements in a conception which they ascribe to me: forgettingthat, equally with them, I deny the possibility of any conception, and affirmonly that after all our futile attempts to conceive, there remains the undefinablesubstance of a conception -- a consciousness which cannot be put into anyshape.
But now let it be understood that the reader is not called on to judgerespecting any of the arguments or conclusions contained in the foregoingfive chapters and in the above paragraphs. The subjects on which we are aboutto enter are independent of the subjects thus far discussed; and he may rejectany or all of that which has gone before, while leaving himself free to acceptany or all of that which is now to come.
When drawing up the programme of the Synthetic Philosophy, it appearedto me that, in the absence of any statement of theologico-metaphysical beliefs,the general doctrine set forth might be misconstrued; and Part I, "TheUnknowable," was written for the purpose of excluding the possible misconstructions.
Unfortunately I did not foresee that Part I would be regarded as a basisfor Part II; with the result that the acceptance or rejection of the conclusionsin Part I, would be supposed to determine acceptance or rejection of thosein Part II. Very many have in consequence been prevented from reading beyondthis point.
But an account of the Transformation of Things, given in the pages whichfollow, is simply an orderly presentation of facts; and the interpretationof the facts is nothing more than a statement of the ultimate uniformitiesthey present -- the laws to which they conform. Is the reader an atheist? the exposition of these facts and these laws will neither yield support tohis belief nor destroy it. Is he a pantheist? The phenomena and the inferencesas now to be set forth will not force on him any incongruous implication.
Does he think that God is immanent throughout all things, from concentratingnebulae to the thoughts of poets? Then the theory to be put before him containsno disproof of that view. Does he believe in a Deity who has given unchanginglaws to the Universe? Then he will find nothing at variance with his beliefin an exposition of those laws and an account of the results.
March, 1899.
