All
science is nothing but an appeal to thought from ordinary sensuous
opinion. It is an attempt to find the reality of things by thinking
about them; and this reality, when it is found, turns out to be a law.
But laws are ideas; though, if they are true ideas, they represent not
merely thoughts in the mind, but also real principles, which manifest
themselves in the objects of the outer world, as well as in the
thinker's mind.

It is not possible in such a work as this, to give a carefully reasoned
proof of this view of the relation of thought and things, or to repeat
the argument of Kant. I must be content with merely referring to it, as
showing that the principles in virtue of which we think, are the
principles in virtue of which objects as we know them exist; and we
cannot be concerned with any other objects. The laws which scientific
investigation discovers are not only ideas that can be written in books,
but also principles which explain the nature of things. In other words,
the hypotheses of the natural sciences, or their categories, are points
of view in the light of which the external world can be regarded as
governed by uniform laws. And these constructive principles, which lift
the otherwise disconnected world into an intelligible system, are
revelations of the nature of intelligence, and only on that account
principles for explaining the world.

"To know,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without."[A]

[Footnote A: _Paracelsus_.]

In this sense, it may be said that all knowledge is anthropomorphic; and
in this respect there is no difference between the physics, which speaks
of energy as the essence of things, and the poetry, which speaks of love
as the ultimate principle of reality. Between such scientific and
idealistic explanations there is not even the difference that the one
begins without and the other within, or that the one is objective and
the other subjective. The true distinction is that the principles upon
which the latter proceed are less abstract than those of science.
"Reason" and "love" are higher principles for the explanation of the
nature of things than "substance" or "cause"; but both are forms of the
unity of thought. And if the latter seem to have nothing to do with the
self, it is only because they are inadequate to express its full
character. On th