In the opening of this chapter, Mr. Spencer states the result, which, in his opinion, philosophy has attained as follows: "All possible conceptions have been one by one tried and found wanting; and so the entire field of speculation has been gradually exhausted without positive result; the only result arrived at being the negative one above stated--that the reality existing behind all appearances is, and must ever be, unknown." He then sets down a considerable list of names of philosophers, who are claimed by Sir William Hamilton as supporters of that position. Such a parade of names may be grateful to the feelings of the Limitists, but it is no support to their cause. The questions at issue are of such a nature that no array of dignities, of learning, of profound _opinions_, can have a feather's weight in the decision. For instance, take Problem XLVII, of the first book of Euclid. What weight have human opinion with reference to its validity? Though a thousand mathematicians should deny its truth, it would be just as convincing as now; and when a thousand mathematicians assert its truth, they add no item to the vividness of the conviction. The school-boy, who never heard of one of them, when he first reads it, knows it must be so, and that this is an inevitable necessity, beyond the possibility of any power or will to change. On principles simple, fixed, and final, just like those of mathematics, seen by the same Eye and known with the same intellectual certainty, and by logical processes just as pure, conclusive, _demonstrative_ as those of geometry, _and by such alone_, can the questions now before us be settled. But though names and opinions have no weight in the final decision, though a demonstration is demanded and must be given, still it is interesting to note the absence of two names, representatives of a class, which must ever awaken, among the devout and pure-hearted, attention and love, and whose teachings, however unnoticed by Mr. Spencer, are a leaven working in the minds and hearts of men, which develop with continually increasing distinctness the solemn and sublime truth, that the human mind is capable of absolute knowledge. Plato, with serious, yea, sad countenance, the butt of jeer and scoff from the wits and comedians of his day, went about teaching those who hung upon his lips, that in every human soul were Ideas which God had implanted, and which were final truth. And Jesus Christ, with a countenance more beautifully serious, more sweetly sad, said to those Jews which believed on him, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; _and ye shall know the truth_, and the truth shall make you free." It may seem to men who grope about in the dismal cavern of the animal nature--the Sense and Understanding--wise to refuse the light, and reject the truths of the Pure Reason and the God-man, and to call the motley conglomeration of facts which they gather, but cannot