Metaphysics

“ And I think that the most prominent characteristic of metaphysics, in history, has been its profession to prove the truth about non-natural existents. I define ‘metaphysical,’ therefore, by a reference to supersensible reality; although I think that the only non-natural objects, about which it has succeeded in obtaining truth, are objects which do not exist at all. ”

“ Metaphysics will thus possess this conspicuous advantage over every other science, that [Pg 190] each student, by attentively referring to his own mind, may ascertain the authorities, upon which any assertions regarding it are supported. There can thus be no deception, we ourselves being the depositaries of the evidence of the subject which we consider.
Metaphysics may be defined as an inquiry concerning those things belonging to, or connected with, the internal nature of man.
It is said that mind produces motion; and it might as well have been said, that motion produces mind. ”

“ How can I progress most rapidly in the understanding of metaphysical science?
Ans. After you have learned the scientific statement of being, to adhere to its Principle and follow its rules, abiding steadfastly in Wisdom, Truth, and Love, remembering you cannot with error destroy error; and your proof of this will be when you attempt to heal the sick. Metaphysics teaches you that Life is God. Then ask yourself: Am I living the life that is approximating to God? ”

“ Now, it is a fact that in metaphysics we frequently argue from the cause to the effect, as is done in other sciences too; but it is no less a fact that we even more frequently argue from the effect to the cause. The very name of metaphysics, which is the bugbear of our opponents, clearly shows that such is the case. Real philosophy, in fact, is called metaphysics for two reasons, the first of which is extrinsic and historical, the second intrinsic and logical. ”

“ Without in any way countenancing such an isolation of metaphysics from the positive sciences, we may, nevertheless, adopt the modern division in substance and in practice. While recognizing the intimate connexion between the special sciences and metaphysics in all its branches, we may regard as General Metaphysics all inquiries into the fundamental principles of being and of knowing, of reality and of knowledge; and as Special Metaphysics the philosophical study of physical nature, of human nature, and of God, the Author and Supreme Cause of all finite reality. ”

“ When a single statement of our metaphysics is proven, every one is proven; for each one will be found to correspond with the Principle of metaphysics when this Principle is understood. If we have given to you, dear readers, as you all can prove on learning it, the science of metaphysics in healing the sick, we also have given you the correct metaphysical version of the foregoing texts. ”

“ Now, such an inquiry into the general character of reality, as opposed to more or less unreal appearance, is precisely what is meant by Metaphysics. Metaphysics sets itself, more systematically and universally than any other science, to ask what, after all, is meant by being real, and to what degree our various 5scientific and non-scientific theories about the world are in harmony with the universal characteristics of real existence. ”

“ And here the question merges in the fundamental problem of metaphysics properly so called; to which science we leave it.
But although the extreme doctrine of the Idealist metaphysicians, that objects are nothing but our sensations and the laws which connect them, has not been generally adopted by subsequent thinkers; the point of most real importance is one on which those metaphysicians are now very generally considered to have made out their case: viz., that [pg 065] all we know of objects is the sensations which they give us, and the order of the occurrence of those sensations. ”

“ While, on the other hand, if in the world of thought there be the same relative difference between the real and the apparent which prevails in the natural universe, a science, the science of metaphysics, will be required to bring before us the facts of our own real thinking, and to correct and displace the facts of our own mere apparent thinking. ”

“ But though, if we are to define ‘metaphysics’ by the contribution which it has actually made to knowledge, we should have to say that it has emphasized the importance of objects which do not exist at all, metaphysicians themselves have not recognised this. They have indeed recognised and insisted that there are, or may be, objects of knowledge which do not exist in time, or at least which we cannot perceive; and in recognising the possibility of these, as an object of investigation, they have, it may be admitted, done a service to mankind. ”

“ The facility with which it seems to solve all the doubts and difficulties of metaphysics, the great relish it imparts to the investigation of nature, and, above all, the immense acquirements of its author, have made it the fashionable system of the day. ”

“ There is perhaps no serious harm in our giving, if we choose, the name Epistemology or Theory of Knowledge to our discussions of ultimate principles, but the older title Metaphysics seems on the whole preferable for two reasons. The discussion of the implications of knowledge is only one part of the metaphysician’s task. The truly real is not only the knowable, it is also that which, if we can obtain it, realises our aspirations and satisfies our emotions. ”

“ As to the historical and practical significance of realistic metaphysics in the history of life and of religion, one must say at once that, like all human conceptions, these various fundamental metaphysical conceptions also are, in one aspect, distinctly active and practical attitudes towards that Other which finite thought seeks. ”

“ Metaphysics must re-think each new fact brought to light, each new generalisation established by science. It must think them in their relation to the whole, and attempt to understand them by setting them in their place in the complete system of knowledge and reality. ”

“ One of the consequences usually drawn by the adherents of the view we are discussing is that philosophy is either partly or entirely metaphysics. And metaphysics is supposed to be some kind of a structure built over and partly resting on the structure of science but towering into lofty heights which are far beyond the reach of all the sciences and of experience. ”

“ That this is the alternative that is embodied in the existence of metaphysics is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the metaphysical interpretation embodies itself in the categories of reason, design, purpose, and aim. Whatever difficulties we may encounter, then, in the use and application of the psychic analogy in determining the nature of the real, it is clear that its employment is inevitable and indispensable. ”

“ In a word, if our conception be the correct one, the functions of a science of metaphysics in respect of our knowledge of the temporal sequence of events psychical and physical must be purely critical, never constructive,—a point to which I shall presently have to recur. ”

“ And the student who turns to our science as a substitute for empirical Physics or Psychology, or for practical morality, is bound to go away disappointed. The reason of this we have already had occasion to see. Metaphysics has to presuppose the general principles of the various sciences and the general forms of practical experience as the materials upon which it works. ”

“ We can now see some of the reasons which make 7the science of Metaphysics a peculiarly difficult branch of study. It is difficult, in the first place, from the very simplicity and generality of its problems. There is a general conviction that every science, if it is to be anything more than a body of disputes about mere words, must deal with some definite subject-matter, and it is not easy to say precisely what is the subject dealt with by the metaphysician. ”

“ The Principle of Divine Metaphysics is God; its practice is the power of Truth over error; its rules demonstrate Science. It reverses all perverted and physical hypotheses concerning Deity, even as the science of optics rejects, while it explains, the incidental or inverted image, and shows what this inverted image is meant to represent. ”

“ By metaphysics, then, I propose to understand the inquiry which used formerly to be known as ontology, that is, the investigation into the general character which belongs to real Being as such, the science, in Aristotelian phraseology, of ὄντα ᾗ ὄντα. Or, if the term "real" be objected against as ambiguous, I would suggest as an alternative account the statement that metaphysics is the inquiry into the general character by which the content of true assertions is distinguished from that of false assertions. ”

“ Yet it is easy, when we come to deal in Metaphysics with the nature of ultimate Reality, to forget this, and to suppose that the certainty with which we can say that the ultimately Real is an experience justifies us in wholesale dogmatising about the special character of that experience. ”

“ These general remarks suffice, without any further development, to vindicate the reality of the material object of metaphysics. But here the question arises, Are all real beings without exception the object of this science? ”

“ So for mediaeval men, metaphysics stood on logic’s shoulders and represented the final completion of their thought, in a universal system and scheme of God and man and things. [457] But the first part of this proposition had not been true with Greek philosophy. Metaphysics is properly occupied with being, in its ultimate essence and relationships; with the consistent putting together of things, to wit, the presentation or expression of them so as not to disagree with any of the data recognized as pertinent. ”

“ In metaphysical science it is seen that only Mind shines by Her own light and governs Her idea, man, and the universe, and governs them harmoniously. Mind forms the ideas that subdivide and radiate their borrowed light, which explains this Scripture, — “whose seed is in itself.” The ideas multiply, but Mind constitutes and creates them. This metaphysics understood shows that the sublimity and magnitude of creation, are its simplicity: He spake and it was done. ”

“ We may perhaps follow the usage of some recent writers in marking this difference of object by a difference in terminology, and say that the goal of experimental science is the Description of facts, the goal of Metaphysics their Interpretation. The difference of aim is, however, not ultimate. Description of facts, when once we cease to be content with such description as will subserve the purpose of calculation and call for description of the fact as it really is, of itself becomes metaphysical interpretation. ”

“ The problems of the metaphysician are no doubt, in a sense, always the same; but this is equally true of the problems of any other science. The methods by which the problems are attacked and the adequacy of the solutions they receive vary, from age to age, in close correspondence with the general development of science. Every great metaphysical conception has exercised its influence on the general history of science, and, in return, every important movement in science has affected the development of Metaphysics. ”

“ Implying, as it so manifestly does, the presence of individual subjects of experience throughout the physical order, the concept of Nature as a realm of evolutionary processes is infinitely nearer to the full truth for Metaphysics than the purely mechanistic view of it as a mere succession of connected changes. ”

“ In fact, our chief interest, as students of Metaphysics, in the further discussion of psychophysical connection will be to point out the fallaciousness of the metaphysical arguments which are commonly used to establish some one hypothesis as necessarily and exclusively true. ”

“ As we have learned already, when we pass from the statement that the processes of the physical order may, for the purpose of description by general formulæ, and the invention of practical methods for their production, be treated as to all intents mechanical, to the very different assertion that the physical order really is rigidly mechanical, we have deserted empirical science for dogmatic Metaphysics, and our metaphysical dogma must stand or fall by its own ultimate coherency and intelligibility as a way of thinking about Reality. ”

“ But this special interpretation of the way in which the facts of experience form a system is no part of our initial postulate as to the general nature of the real; it is 29simply one among other theories of the concrete character of the universe, and it is for Metaphysics itself to test its merits. ”

“ By metaphysics I understand all knowledge that pretends to transcend the possibility of experience, thus to transcend nature or the given phenomenal appearance of things, in order to give an explanation of that by which, in some sense or other, this experience or nature is conditioned ”

“ If he says that mental phenomena cannot exist without a metaphysical ground or condition, and that therefore we ought to take it into account in all our study of mental phenomena, then he ought to hold that we should take into account the metaphysical ground or basis of material phenomena in all our study of them, and that the distinction between science and metaphysics should be abolished. ”

“ I say partly to the nature of the initial claims of metaphysics, for it is characteristic of metaphysics that it refuses to regard the distinction between phenomena and ground or inner nature, on which the sciences rest, as final, and is committed from the outset to the claim that the real is in its inner nature one and to be interpreted in the light of, or in terms of, its inner unity ”

“ The first and last step of metaphysics is to learn that Mind is supreme, and governs all. In dreams we fly, meet a far-off friend, and have our body with our mind, carrying it through the air, or over the ocean; and this dream of sleep is nearer our being in science than the waking dream of Life in matter, and because the belief of personal sense governs it less. The scientific statement that all is mind gains its first proofs by healing the sick on this Principle. A single demonstration of this is important evidence. ”