be as exact in its
procedure and as certain in its conclusions as the mathematical
sciences. Meantime, it may be affirmed that philosophic analysis, in the
person of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Cousin, has succeeded in
disengaging such _a priori_ ideas, and formulating such principles and
laws of thought, as lead infallibly to the cognition of the _Absolute
Being_, the _Absolute Reason_, the _Absolute Good_, that is, GOD.

It would carry us too far beyond our present design were we to exhibit,
in each instance, the process of _immediate abstraction_ by which the
contingent and relative element of knowledge is eliminated, and the
necessary and absolute principle is disengaged. We shall simply state
the method, and show its application by a single illustration.

There are unquestionably _two_ sorts of abstraction: 1. "_Comparative_
abstraction, operating upon several real objects, and seizing their
resemblances in order to form an abstract idea, which is collective and
mediate; collective, because different individuals concur in its
formation; mediate, because it requires several intermediate
operations." This is the method of the physical sciences, which
comprises comparison, abstraction, and generalization. The result in
this process is the attainment of a _general_ truth. 2. "_Immediate_
abstraction, not comparative; operating not upon several concretes, but
upon a single one, eliminating and neglecting its individual and
variable part, and disengaging the absolute part, which it raises at
once to its pure form." The parts to be eliminated in a concrete
cognition are, first, the quality of the object, and the circumstances
under which the absolute unfolds itself; and secondly, the quality of
the subject, which perceives but does not constitute it. The phenomena
of the me and the not-me being eliminated, the absolute remains. This is
the process of rational psychology, and the result obtained is a
_universal_ and _necessary_ truth.

"Let us take, as an example, the principle of cause. To be able to say
that the event I see must have a cause, it is not indispensable to have
seen several events succeed each other. The principle which compels me
to pronounce this judgment is already complete in the first as in the
last event; it can not change in respect to its object, it can not
change in itself; it neither increases nor decreases with the greater or
less number of applications. The only difference that it is subject t