What we seek for are laws, final, fixed laws, which are seen by a direct intuition to be such; and these writings are of great value, because they cultivate and assist the Reason in its search for these highest Truths. One need have no hesitation, then, in rejecting the authority of Mr. Spencer's names, aye, even if they were a thousand more. We seek for, and can obtain, that which he cannot give us--a demonstration; which he cannot give us because he denies the very existence of that faculty by which alone a demonstration is possible. As his empiricism is worthless, so is his rationality. No "deduction" from any "_product_ of thought, or process of thought," is in any way applicable to the question in hand. Intuitions are the mental actions needed. Light is neither product nor process. We pass over, then, his whole illustration of the partridge. It proves nothing. He leads us through an interminable series of questions to no goal; and says there is none. He gives the soul a stone, when it cries for bread. One sentence of his is doubtless true. "Manifestly, as the _most_ general cognition at which we arrive cannot be reduced to a more general one, it cannot be understood." Of course not. When the Understanding has attained to the last generalization _by these very terms_, it cannot go any farther. But by no means does his conclusion follow, that "Of necessity, therefore, explanation must eventually bring us down to the inexplicable. The deepest truth which we can get at must be unaccountable. Comprehension must become something other than comprehension, before the ultimate fact can be comprehended." How shall we account for the last generalization, and show this conclusion to be false? Thus. Hitherto there have been, properly speaking, no comprehensions, only perceptions in the Sense and connections in the Understanding. "The sense _distinguishes_ quality and _conjoins_ quantity; the understanding _connects_ phenomena; the reason _comprehends_ the whole operation of both." The Reason, then, overseeing the operations of the lower faculties, and possessing within itself the _a priori_ laws in accordance with which they are, _sees_ directly and immediately why they are, and thus comprehends and accounts for them. It sees that there is an end to every process of generalization; and it then sees, what the Understanding could never guess, that _after_--in the order of our procedure--the last generalization there is an eternal truth, in accordance with which process and conclusion were and must be. There remains, then, no inexplicable, for the final truth is seen and known in its very self.