results of our thinking is therefore a mark of sound logic, and inconsistency is infallible proof of error. The metaphysician never stops with an assumption or principle until he has traced it through all its consequences to its final end; and if at any point it fails to fit in nicely and smoothly with accepted knowledge, he experiences a jar that warns him the delicate organism of truth is out of gear or balance, and he hastens to search for and correct the maladjustment. Metaphysics abhors a contradiction, as it used to be said that nature abhors a vacuum, and it cannot rest until it has wrought truth out into a universal and harmonious system.

3. THE ASSUMPTIONS OF METAPHYSICS

Every science starts with a large stock of assumptions. It can investigate and establish only the facts and principles contained in its own limited field and must assume the generally accepted results of other fields. Geology accepts and uses the results of physics, chemistry, biology, and other sciences. Ethics accepts the results of psychology, psychology accepts physiology, physiology accepts chemistry, chemistry accepts physics, and thus every science is built upon foundations of faith. The proved principles of one science become the assumptions of the next.

Metaphysics as the universal science in one sense starts with the largest stock of assumptions, as it accepts and uses the results of all other sciences. But in another sense it starts with the fewest assumptions, for its

aim is to reach the ultimate principles of reality, and therefore it must sift and search the postulates of all other sciences and have as few as possible of its own. Assumptions are its dislike, if not its abhorrence, and if possible it would have none of them. This, however, cannot be. Human reasoning is a process that always begins in the middle of things, because it can never get back of its own first principles. It must have something to stand on before it can take its first step, and to renounce all assumptions would be to cut the ground from under its own feet. An assumption is an act of faith rather than of logic, and trust is older than reason in human experience, as in the evolution of life the heart is older than the brain. We must trust something before we can know anything, and the metaphysician cannot escape this necessity. He, too, is a man of faith and must walk by faith, at least in the first steps of his metaphysical journey. Nevertheless, he does well to be as sparing and skeptical of assumptions as he can. It is his business to be suspicious of them and to "prove the spirits, whether they are of " the truth, "because many false" assumptions "are gone out into the world." Rigorous reasoning is his method, and everything must submit to the severest search and test.

Yet there are a few principles that the metaphysician must assume, for without them he cannot even begin to reason. In common with all other men he sees and accepts the axioms of mathematics as self-evident truths. That things equal to the same thing are equal to one

another, that a finite whole is greater than any of its parts, and so on, are found in the metaphysician's stock of assumptions. These things cannot be proved in the sense that they can be analyzed and demonstrated by a process of reasoning, for they are immediately perceived as unanalyzable truths, and no reasoning about them can make them any clearer or more certain. Of a similar nature is the principle that every change of being must have a cause. While all our experience confirms this, yet it is not derived from experience, but is a logical necessity of thought. We cannot think it away, or conceive a change without thinking of it as being effected by some cause. Mental changes are quite as subject to this principle as physical changes, and it is a universal law of being. If there were no such law, there could be no order in the system of being, and all science would be impossible.

There are two other assumptions of metaphysics that are of special importance. One is the trustworthiness of our mental faculties and processes. The human mind is constituted to know truth and to discover truth. Of course it is subject in all its processes to error, as the swarms of errors that have attended all its thinking abundantly prove. But it can test its processes, constantly compare its results with experience, clear itself of errors, and thus ever approximate more closely to reality. The attempt to reach the truth is often a long and hard battle, but it is a battle that can be won. It may not be the absolute truth that is reached, it may be rela

tive to our faculties, it may be truth seen through a glass darkly, but still it is truth. This principle, then, must be assumed in the beginning of all our reasoning: without this assumption we could not prove or disprove anything, for all our results would be vitiated by the constitutional untrustworthiness of the mind itself.

The other important assumption is the unity and harmony of all reality. Being breaks into infinite variety, yet amidst all its varied forms it maintains its own inner cohesion and harmony. However diverse and apparently antagonistic its manifestations are, we must believe that they all fit together with absolute nicety and that there are nowhere any faults or gaps, any misfit joints or open seams, that would break or mar the perfect continuity and harmony of the system. However persistent and pugnacious, formidable and alarming the appearances, there must be no real contradiction or inconsistency in the realm of being. All its radii must run to the same center, all its manifold manifestations must melt into one unity. Now we cannot prove this, certainly we cannot wait to prove it before we begin our reasonings, perhaps we never can prove it. And yet we must assume it, for without such assumption all science again becomes impossible. Science is simply a transcript of the order that reigns in the realm of being, and if there be no such order, there can be no science. Our progress in the growth of knowledge may confirm this assumption of the unity of truth, but we must start with it as a postulate, and may never reach the point where this

faith becomes knowledge. Yet faith is not necessarily a weaker kind of belief than reasoned knowledge, but may be the surest of our convictions.

And so metaphysics is built on trust, and its first word is faith. But having accepted these few, primal, necessary assumptions of thought, it suddenly grows skeptical and refuses to accept any more. Having taken these first steps by faith, it henceforth walks by sight.

4. THE SPIRIT AND OBJECT OF METAPHYSICS The spirit in which and the object for which a science is prosecuted are important matters. Metaphysics should first of all conduct its reasonings in a truth-loving, truth-seeking spirit. This spirit should characterize all science, but it should especially mark metaphysics. Its aim is to reach ultimate truth, and its only hope of success is to clear its eyes of all prejudice and passion and look with unclouded vision. It should therefore be very honest and candid, patient and persistent, in its search, with an eye single for the truth. Tradition and authority can have little place in its processes. Prejudice and partisanship should play no part in its inquiries, and its one pursuit and passion should be to reach reality.

And, therefore, the metaphysician may well be characterized by the spirit of humility. Presumption and pride incapacitate him for that calm and clear thought that is his only means of seeing truth. Dogmatism, offensive in all men, is especially and unpardonably