rnal
night, or rolling in eternal day. With another system of worlds, one can
conceive other physics, but one can not conceive other metaphysics. It
is impossible to imagine a world in which the law of causality does not
reign. Here, then, we have one absolute principle (among others which
may be enumerated), the existence and reality of which is revealed, not
by sensation, but by reason--a principle which transcends the limits of
experience, and which, in its regular and logical development, attains
the knowledge of the Absolute Cause--the First Cause of all causes--God.

Thus it is evident that the human mind is in possession of two distinct
orders of primitive cognitions,--one, contingent, relative, and
phenomenal; the other universal, necessary, and absolute. These two
distinct orders of cognition presuppose the existence in man of two
distinct faculties or organs of knowledge--_sensation_, external and
internal, which perceives the contingent, relative, and phenomenal, and
_reason_, which apprehends the universal, necessary, and absolute. The
knowledge which is derived from sensation and experience is called
_empirical_ knowledge, or knowledge _a posteriori_, because subsequent
to, and consequent upon, the exercise of the faculties of observation.
The knowledge derived from reason is called _transcendental_ knowledge,
or knowledge _a priori_, because it furnishes laws to, and governs the
exercise of the faculties of observation and thought, and is not the
result of their exercise. The sensibility brings the mind into relation
with the _physical_ world, the reason puts mind in communication with
the _intelligible_ world--the sphere of _a priori_ principles, of
necessary and absolute truths, which depend upon neither the world nor
the conscious self, and which reveal to man the existence of the soul,
nature, and God. Every distinct fact of consciousness is thus at once
_psychological_ and _ontological_, and contains these three fundamental
ideas, which we can not go beyond, or cancel by any possible
analysis--the _soul_, with its faculties; _matter_, with its qualities;
_God_, with his perfections.

We do not profess to be able to give a clear explication and complete
enumeration of all the ideas of reason, and of the necessary and
universal principles or axioms which are grounded on these ideas. This
is still the grand desideratum of metaphysical science. Its achievement
will give us a primordial logic, which shall