Page:Riddles of the Sphinx (1891).djvu/15

1. page

2. Chapter III.

   Scepticism ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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3. § 1. The meaning of Scepticism, and § 2 its invalid

   forms. § 3. It must be immanent and base itself on the irreconcilable conflict of the data of consciousness, e.g., between thought and reality. §§ 4-14. The origin and flaws of the conceptions forming the first principles of science. § 4. They are mutilated anthropomorphisms, and (§ 5) cannot grasp the Becoming of things. § 6. This shown in the case of Time. The fiction of its discreteness. Time measured by motions and motions by Time, a vicious circle. Its infinity and self-contradiction. § 7. Space. Its infinity. Atomism v. its infinite divisibility. Matter and Space and the Void. Real and conceptual Space and the truth of geometry. § 8. Motion measured by Rest, but Rest illusory. If all motive is relative, what of the conservation of energy? How can there be potential energy or position in infinite Space? § 9. Matter, an abstraction. The solidity of atoms does not account for the hardness of bodies. The wonders of the Ether. Action at a distance arid inertia. Matter a hypothesis which is not even self-consistent. § 10. Force, only depersonalized will. The interaction of bodies a theory. § 11. Causation, its animistic origin. It will not work unless arbitrary isolations and connections are made in the complex of phenomena. Even so it involves the difficulties of an infinite regress or of a First Cause, and finally, it conflicts with free will. § 12. Substance, the permanent in change; no proof of this. § 13. Becoming not a category, but a contradiction to thought, which science can deal with only as Being and Not Being. But Being a fiction, for all things become. So (§ 14) none of our principles can deal with Becoming, because of the radical difference of thought and feeling (reality). The meaning of the a priority of thought.

   § 15. The characteristics of the Real; individual, substantival, presented, becomes in Time and Space, has infinite content. And of Thought, does not become in Time or Space, but is valid eternally; abstract, universal, discursive, discrete, adjectival, necessary. Hence, § 16, a harmony of truth and fact, viz., knowledge, is impossible. §§ 17-18. This conclusion is confirmed by logic, both as to judgment, which states ideas as facts, and (§ 18) as to inference, which does not even pretend