ty, and
time both of internal and external, but neither of them having any
objective reality; and that the world is not known to us as it is, but
only as it appears?

[Sidenote: Remarks on the criterion.]

I admit the truth of the remark of Posidonius that a man might as well
be content to die as to cease philosophizing; for, if there are
contradictions in philosophy, there are quite as many in life. In the
light of this remark, I shall therefore not hesitate to offer a few
suggestions respecting the criterion of human knowledge, undiscouraged
by the fact that so many of the ablest men have turned their attention
to it. In this there might seem to be presumption, were it not that the
advance of the sciences, and especially of human physiology has brought
us to a more elevated point of view, and enabled us to see the state of
things much more distinctly than was possible for our predecessors.

[Sidenote: Defective information of the old philosophy.]

[Sidenote: Necessity of a more general conception as to man.]

[Sidenote: The whole cycle must be included,]

[Sidenote: and also his race connexions.]

I think that the inability of ancient philosophers to furnish a true
solution of this problem was altogether owing to the imperfect, and,
indeed, erroneous idea they had of the position of man. They gave too
much weight to his personal individuality. In the mature period of his
life they regarded him as isolated, independent, and complete in
himself. They forgot that this is only a momentary phase in his
existence, which, commencing from small beginnings, exhibits a
continuous expansion or progress. From a single cell, scarcely more than
a step above the inorganic state, not differing, as we may infer both
from the appearance it offers and the forms through which it runs in the
earlier stages of life, from the cell out of which any other animal or
plant, even the humblest, is derived, a passage is made through form
after form in a manner absolutely depending upon surrounding physical
conditions. The history is very long, and the forms are very numerous,
between the first appearance of the primitive trace and the hoary aspect
of seventy years. It is not correct to take one moment in this long
procession and make it a representative of the whole. It is not correct
to say, even if the body of the mature man undergoes unceasing changes
to an extent implying the reception, incorporation, and dismissal of
nearly a ton and