We find in Professor Cornelius's clear little book, "An Introduction to Philosophy" (Leipzig, 1903; it has unhappily not yet been translated into English), that metaphysics is repudiated altogether, and epistemology is set in its place. But this rejection of metaphysics does not necessarily imply the denial of the value of such an analysis of our experience as I have in this work called metaphysical. Metaphysics is taken to mean, not an analysis of experience, but a groping behind the veil of phenomena for some reality not given in experience. In other words, what Professor Cornelius condemns is what many of the rest of us also condemn under another name. What he calls metaphysics, we call bad metaphysics; and what he calls epistemology, we call metaphysics. The dispute is really a dispute touching the proper name to apply to reflective analysis of a certain kind. As it is the fashion in certain quarters to abuse metaphysics, I set the reader on his guard. Some kinds of metaphysics certainly ought to be repudiated under whatever name they may be presented to us. CHAPTER XX THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 76. RELIGION AND REFLECTION.--A man may be through and through ethical in his thought and feeling, and yet know nothing of the science of ethics. He may be possessed of the finest aesthetic taste, and yet may know nothing of the science of aesthetics. It is one thing to be good, and another to know clearly what goodness means; it is one thing to love the beautiful, and another to know how to define it. Just so a man may be thoroughly religious, and may, nevertheless, have reflected very little upon his religious belief and the foundations upon which it rests. This does not mean that his belief is without foundation. It may have a firm basis or it may not. But whatever the case may be, he is not in a position to say much about it. He _feels_ that he is right, but he cannot prove it. The man is, I think we must admit, rather blind as to the full significance of his position, and he is, in consequence, rather helpless. Such a man is menaced by certain dangers. We have seen in the chapter on ethics that men are by no means at one in their judgments as to the rightness or wrongness of given actions. And it requires a very little reflection to teach us that men are not at one in their religious notions. God and His nature, the relation of God to man, what the religious life should be, these things are the subject of much dispute; and some men hold opinions regarded by others as not merely erroneous but highly pernicious in their influence.