PROP. XIV.————
A good rule for reaching truth on metaphysical topics.2. It must have occurred to the reader before now, that the best way of attaining to correct opinions on most metaphysical subjects, is by finding out what has been said on any given point by the psychologists, and then by saying the very opposite. In such cases we are sure to be right in at least ninety-nine instances out of a hundred. Indeed, no better recipe than this can be prescribed for those who are desirous of compassing the truth. The case before us is a striking exemplification of the infallibility of this rule, which is established by all the other positions laid down in these Institutes, although, in most instances, not quite so obtrusively. This counter-proposition gives expression to one of those hereditary commonplaces, which the science of the human mind has an especial pleasure in parading; the opinion, to wit, that our faculties are competent to deal only with the phenomenal—that is, the unsubstantial and unreal. What cause this dogma may be due to—whether to a mock humility, or to an inexactitude of thinking, or to both—is not worth inquiring, for it is manifestly false and contradictory.
The psychological trifling with truth ought to be put a stop to.3. This merely may be said, that psychology has been permitted to indulge in this solemn species of trifling a great deal too long, and that it is high time it should be put a stop to. Why suppose that the wrong side of things is turned invariably towards us; and that all that we can know is not