THEORY OF KNOWING.
127
PROP. IV.————
per se a contradiction and an impossibility. Hence his doubts, and even his denial, of the existence of matter per se are not altogether so unreasonable as they are liable to appear to those who are ignorant of the answer which he has tacitly and only half-consciously returned to the preliminary question referred to.
Cause of this precipitate judgment. Its evil consequences.9. This preliminary question has been prejudged—that is, has been settled in opposite ways without examination—by the materialist and by the idealist, owing to their having proceeded to ontology (the science of Being) before they had proposed and exhausted the problems of a rigorous and demonstrated epistemology (the science of Knowing). Owing to this reversal of the right method of philosophy, while the materialist has tacitly returned a wrong answer to this preliminary question, the idealist has obtained only a glimpse of the truth. The materialist rejects the law with an emphasis all the more strong, because the question which inquires about it can scarcely be said to have occurred to him. He never even dreams that there is an invincible law of reason which prevents all intelligence from knowing matter per se. He has silently decided in his own mind that there is no such law; and hence he has no difficulty in coming to a decision in favour of independent material existence. On the other hand, the idealist has certainly got