450 CRITICAL NOTICES :

intuitions of the other lead to nothing but empirical generalisa- tions, does not clearly appear ; but I presume the author would say that this difference arose from the difference of the spheres themselves. The laws of the one are perceived to be universal and necessary because they are universal and necessary ; the laws of the other are perceived to be contingent because they are con- tingent. Mind, both in perception and in intuition, is a passive recipient of impressions, but in both instances they are true im- pressions. Such a system, if properly developed and set out, together with its evidence, is certainly worth considering ; but I have sufficient faith in the method of the old Scottish Metaphysics to believe that evidence is, after all, the main point. Eeid and his followers denied that all evidence should be addressed to the senses, but they insisted that nothing should be laid down in philosophy that could not be supported by evidence. On what evidence, then, does the author rely ? His answer is by no means as clear as could be wished. He has hardly grappled with the question of the relation between the Space and Time which we sensuously perceive and the Space and Time which we hyperphysically intuite for to call the former modes of the latter seems to me to be darkening counsel by words without knowledge. But it is still worse with Force. All men probably believe that the Spaces and Times with which they have to deal are parts of one vast Space and one vast Time. But they do not believe that all the forces with which they have to deal are parts of one vast Force. And so far as I have studied physical science, I believe that in this respect it confirms the popular notion. Every particle of matter acts on every other particle, and even if there is but one force acting between each pair of particles, supposing the number of ultimate particles to be n, the number of ultimate forces will be n (n - 1). These forces may to a large extent act according to the same laws ; but if the same course of teaching was adopted in every school in the kingdom, should we infer the existence of a Universal Schoolmaster, of whom all the individual School- masters and Schoolmistresses were so many modes ? I may add that the author cites in support of his cosmical universals, Space, Time and Force, not any well-known physicist, but Mr. Herbert Spencer's "co-existent resisting positions". Mr. Spencer probably intended this as a description of ponderable matter for which it may answer tolerably ; but the author, who includes the lumini- ferous ether in his external world, is plainly bound to discard it. The ether undoubtedly transmits force, but the balance of evi- dence appears to indicate that it is wholly unresisting. Space will not permit of a more extended examination of this theory. It is well worth stating and defending ; but it seems to me to be even at the outset encumbered with difficulties, and most readers of the book will, I think, find others cropping up as they go on. I may perhaps particularise the author's reference