proper to observe," says Sir W. Hamilton, that had we faculties equal in number to all the possible modes of existence, whether of mind or matter, still would our knowledge of mind or matter be only relative. If material existence could exhibit ten thousand phenomenaif we possessed ten thousand senses to apprehend these ten thousand phenomena of material existence, of existence absolutely and in itself we should then be as ignorant as we are at present.' The conception here is that there is something to be known about things in which they are not presented as in any relation to anything else. It affirms that there are certain ultimate entities in nature to which all phenomena are due, and yet which can be thought of as having no relation to these phenomena, or to ourselves, or to any other existence whatever. Now, as the very idea of knowledge consists in the perception of relations, this affirmation is, in the purest sense of the word, nonsense-that is to say, it is a series of words which have either no meaning at all or a meaning which is self-contradictory. It belongs to the class of propositions which throw just discredit on metaphysics-mere verbal propositions, pretending to deal with conceptions which are no conceptions at all, but empty sounds. The" unconditioned," we are told, is unthinkable;" but words which are unthinkable had better be also unspeakable, or at least unspoken. It is altogether untrue that we are compelled to believe in the existence of anything which is "unconditioned"in matter with no qualities-in minds with no character-in a God with no attributes. Even the metaphysicians who dwell on this distinction between the relative and the unconditioned admit that it is one to which no idea can be attached. Yet, in spite of this admission, they proceed to found many infer ences upon it, as if it had an intelligible meaning. Those who have not been accustomed to metaphysical literature could hardly believe the flagrant unreason which is common on this subject. It cannot be better illustrated than by quoting the words in which this favorite doctrine is expressed by Sir William

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** 'Lectures," vol. i. p. 145.

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Hamilton. Speaking of our knowledge of matter, he says: It is a name for something known-for that which appears to us under the forms of extension, solidity, divisibility, figure, motion, roughness, smoothness, color, heat, cold," etc. But," he goes on to say, as these phenomena appear only in conjunction, we are compelled by the constitution of our nature to think them conjoined in and by something; and as they are phenomena, we cannot think them the phenomena of nothing, but must regard them as the properties or qualities of something that is extended, figured, etc. But this something absolutely and in itself-i.e., considered apart from its phenomena is to us as Zero.

It is only in its qualities, only in its effects, in its relative or phenomenal existence, that it is cognizable or conceivable; and it is only by a law of thought which compels us to think something absolute and unknown, as the basis or condition of the relative and known, that this something obtains a kind of incomprehensible reality to us." The argument here is that because phenomena are and must be the "properties or qualities of something else," therefore we are compelled to think" of that something as having an existence separable from any relation to its own qualities and properties, and that this something acquires from this reasoning a "kind of incomprehensible reality!" There is no such law of thought. There is no such necessity of thinking nonsense as is here alleged. All that we are compelled to think is that the ultimate constitution of matter, and the ultimate source of its relations to our own organism, are unknown, and are probably inaccessible to us. But this is a very different conception from that which affirms that if we did know or could know these ultimate truths we should find in them anything standing absolutely alone and unrelated to other existences in the universe.

It is, however, so important that we should define to ourselves as clearly as we can the nature of the limitations which affect our knowledge, and the real inferences which are to be derived from the consciousness we have of them, that it may be well to examine these dicta of metaphysicians in the light of specific

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instances. It becomes all the more important to do so when we observe that the language in which these dicta are expressed generally implies that knowledge which is only relative' is less genuine or less absolutely true than some other kind of knowledge which is not explained, except that it must be knowledge of that which has no relation to the mind.

There is a sense (and it is the only sense in which the words have any meaning) in which we are all accustomed to say that we know a thing "in itself" when we have found out, for example, its origin, or its structure, or its chemical composition, as distinguished from its more superficial aspects. If a new substance were offered to us as food, and if we examined its appearance to the eye, and felt its consistency to the touch, and smelled its odor, and finally tasted it, we should then know as much about it as these various senses could tell us. Other senses or other forms of sensation might soon add their own several contributions to our knowledge, and we might discover that this substance had deleterious effects upon the human organism. This would be knowing, perhaps, by far the most important things that are to be known about it. But we should certainly like to know more, and we should probably consider that we had found out what it was "in itself," when we had discovered farther, for example, that it was the fruit of a tree. Chemistry might next inform us of the analysis of the fruit, and might exhibit some alkaloid to which its peculiar properties and its peculiar effects upon the body are due. This, again, we should certainly consider as knowing what it is "in itself." But other questions respecting it would remain behind. How the tree can extract this alkaloid from the inorganic elements of the soil, and how, when so extracted, it should have such and such peculiar effects upon the animal body, these, and similar questions, we may ask, and probably we shall ask in vain. But there is nothing in the inaccessibility of this knowledge to suggest that we are absolutely incapable of understanding the answer if it were explained to us. On the contrary, the disposition we have to put such questions raises a strong presumption that the an

swer would be one capable of that assimilation by our intellectual nature in which all understanding of anything consists. There is nothing in the series of phenomena which this substance has exhibited to us-nothing in the question which they raise which can even suggest the idea that all these relations which we have traced, or any others which may remain behind, are the result of something which can be thought of or conceived as neither a cause nor a consequence-but solitary and unrelated. On the contrary, all that remains unexplained is the nature and cause of its relations-its relations, on the one hand, to the elements out of which vegetable vitality has combined it, and its relations, on the other hand, to the still higher vitality which it threatens to destroy. Its place in the unity of nature is the ultimate object of our search, and thus unity is essentially a unity of relations, and of nothing else. That unity everywhere proclaims the truth that there is nothing in the wide universe which is unrelated to the rest.

Let us take another example. Until modern science had established its methods of physical investigation, light and sound were known as sensations only. That is to say, they were known in terms of the mental impressions which they immediately produce upon us, and in no other terms whatever. There was no proof that in these sensations we had any knowledge" in themselves" of the external agencies which produce them. But now all this is changed. Science has discovered what these two agencies are "in themselves;" that is to say, it has defined them under aspects which are totally distinct from seeing or hearing, and is able to describe them in terms addressed to wholly different faculties of conception. Both light and sound are in the nature of undulatory movements in elastic media-to which undulations our organs of sight and hearing are respectively adjusted or

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attuned." In these organs, by virtue of that adjustment or attuning, these same undulations are "translated" into the sensations which we know. It thus appears that the facts as described to us in this language of sensation are the true equivalent of the facts as described in the very different language of intel

lectual analysis. The eye is now understood to be an apparatus for enabling the mind instantaneously to appreciate differences of motion which are of almost inconceivable minuteness. The pleasure we derive from the harmonies of color and of sound, although mere sensations, do correctly represent the movement of undulations in a definite order, while those other sensations which we know as discords represent the actual clashing and disorder of interfering waves. In breathing the healthy air of physical discoveries such as these, although the limitations of our knowledge continually haunt us, we gain, nevertheless, a triumphant sense of its certainty and of its truth. Not only are the mental impressions, which our organs have been so constructed as to convey, a true interpretation of external facts, but the conclusions we draw as to their origin and their source, and as to the guarantee we have for the accuracy of our conceptions, are placed on the firmest of all foundations. The mirror into which we look is a true mirror, reflecting accurately and with infinite fineness the realities of nature. And this great lesson is being repeated in every new discovery, and in every new application of an old one. Every reduction of phenomena to ascertained measures of force; every application of mathematical proof to theoretical conceptions; every detection of identical operations in diverse departments of nature; every subjection of material agencies to the service of mankind; every confirmation of knowledge acquired through one sense by the evidence of another-every one of these operations adds to the verifications of science, confirms our reasonable trust in the faculties we possess, and assures us that the knowledge we acquire by the careful use of these is a real and substantial knowledge of the truth.

If now we examine the kind of knowledge respecting light and sound which recent discoveries have revealed to us, as compared with the knowledge which we had of them before these discoveries were made, we shall find that there is an important difference. The knowledge which we had before was the simple and elementary knowledge of sensation. As compared with that knowledge the new knowledge we have

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acquired respecting light and sound is a knowledge of these things "in themselves." Such is the language in which we should naturally express our sense of that difference, and in so expressing it we should be expressing an important truth. The newer knowledge higher knowledge than the older and simpler knowledge which we had before. And why? Wherein does this higher quality of the new knowledge consist? Is it not in the very fact that the new knowledge is the perception of a higher kind of relation than that which we had perceived before? There is no difference between the two kinds of knowledge in respect to the mere abstract character of relativity. The old was as relative as the new; and the new is as relative as the old. Before the new discoveries sound was known to conie from sonorous bodies, and light was known to come from luminous bodies. This was a relation-but a relation of the vaguest and most general kind. As compared with this vague relation the new relation under which we know them is knowledge of a more definite and of a higher kind. Light and sound we now know to be words or ideas representing not merely any one thing or any two things, but especially a relation of adjustment between a number of things. In this adjustment light and sound, as known to sense, do "in themselves" consist. Sound becomes known to us as the attunement between certain aerial pulsations and the auditory apparatus. Light becomes known to us as a similar or analogous attunement between the ethereal pulsations and the optic apparatus. Sound in this sense is not the aerial waves"in themselves," but in their 'relation to the ear. Light is not the ethereal undulations in themselves," but in their relation to the eye. It is only when these come into contact with a prearranged machinery that they become what we know and speak of as light and sound. This conception, therefore, is found to represent and express a pure relation; and it is a conception higher than the one we had before, not because it is either less or more relative, but because its relativity is to a higher faculty of the intellect or the understanding.

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And indeed, when we come to think of it, we see that all kinds of knowledge

fold anthologies. A yet greater and heavier undertaking has in our own day been attempted and accomplished by a more thoughtful and sometimes a more trustworthy critic than Campbell. Having before this had occasion to remark in terms of somewhat strong deprecation on the principle adopted by Mr. William Rossetti in his revision and rearrangement of the text of our greatest lyric poet, I am the more desirous to bear witness to the elevation and the excellence of his critical workmanship in this wider and more general field. On some points I differ gravely from his estimate; once or twice I differ from it on all points; but on the whole I find it not acceptable merely but admirable as the very best and most sufficient ever yet given of some at least among the leading names of our poets.

Four of these are by him selected as composing the supreme quadrilateral of English song. It is through no lack of love and reverence for the name of Chaucer that I must question his right, though the first narrative poet of England, to stand on that account beside her first dramatic, her first epic, or her first lyric poet. But, being certainly unprepared to admit his equality with Shakespeare, with Milton, and with Shelley, I would reduce Mr. Rossetti's mystic four to the old sacred number of three. Pure or mere narrative is a form essentially and avowedly inferior to the lyrical or the dramatic form of poetry; and the finer line of distinction which marks it off from the epic marks it also thereby as inferior.

Of all whose names may claim anything like equality of rank on the roll of national poets-not even excepting Virgil-we may say that Chaucer borrowed most from abroad, and did most to improve whatever he borrowed. I believe it would be but accurate to admit that in all his poems of serious or tragic narrative we hear a French or Italian tongue speaking with a Teutonic accent through English lips. It has utterly unlearned the native tone and cadence of its natural inflections; it has perfectly put on the native tone and cadence of a stranger's; yet is it always what it was at first-lingua romana in bocca tedesca. It speaks not only with more vigor but actually with more sweetness than the

tongues of its teachers; but it speaks after its own fashion no other than the lesson they have taught. Chaucer was in the main a French or Italian poet, lined thoroughly and warmly throughout with the substance of an English humorist. And with this great gift of specially English humor he bined, naturally as it were and inevitably, the inseparable twin-born gift of peculiarly English pathos. In the figures of Arcite and Grisilde he has actually outdone Boccaccio's very self for pathos: as far almost as Keats was afterward to fall short of the same great model in the same great quality. And but for the instinctive distaste and congenital repugnance of his composed and comfortable genius from its accompanying horror, he might haply have come nearer than he has cared or dared to come even to the unapproachable pathos of Dante. But it was only in the world of one who stands far higher above Dante than even Dante can on the whole be justly held to stand above Chaucer that figures as heavenly as the figures of Beatrice and Matilda could move unspotted and undegraded among figures as earthly as those of the Reve, the Miller, and the Wife of Bath; that a wider if not keener pathos than Ugolino's or Francesca's could alternate with a deeper if not richer humor than that of Absolon and Nicholas.

It is a notable dispensation of chance that the three great typical poets of the three great representative nations of Europe during the dark and lurid lapse of the middle ages should each afford as complete and profound a type of a different and alien class as of a different and alien people. and alien people. Vast as are the diversities of their national and personal characters, these are yet less radical than the divergences between class and class which mark off each from either of his fellows in nothing but in fame. Dante represents, at its best and highest, the upper class of the dark ages not less than he represents their Italy; Chaucer represents their middle class at its best and wisest not less than he represents their England; Villon represents their lower class at its worst and its best alike even more than he represents their France. And of these three the English middle class, being incomparably the