sacrifices and undergone purification there, has little chance of
admission into the sanctuary.

Obvious as these considerations may appear to be, it would be wrong to
ignore the fact that their force is by no means universally admitted. On
the contrary, the necessity for a proper psychological and physiological
training to the student of philosophy is denied, on the one hand, by the
"pure metaphysicians," who attempt to base the theory of knowing upon
supposed necessary and universal truths, and assert that scientific
observation is impossible unless such truths are already known or
implied: which, to those who are not "pure metaphysicians," seems very
much as if one should say that the fall of a stone cannot be observed,
unless the law of gravitation is already in the mind of the observer.

On the other hand, the Positivists, so far as they accept the teachings
of their master, roundly assert, at any rate in words, that observation
of the mind is a thing inherently impossible in itself, and that
psychology is a chimera--a phantasm generated by the fermentation of the
dregs of theology. Nevertheless, if M. Comte had been asked what he
meant by "physiologic cerebrale," except that which other people call
"psychology;" and how he knew anything about the functions of the brain,
except by that very "observation interieure," which he declares to be an
absurdity--it seems probable that he would have found it hard to escape
the admission, that, in vilipending psychology, he had been propounding
solemn nonsense.

It is assuredly one of Hume's greatest merits that he clearly recognised
the fact that philosophy is based upon psychology; and that the inquiry
into the contents and the operations of the mind must be conducted upon
the same principles as a physical investigation, if what he calls the
"moral philosopher" would attain results of as firm and definite a
character as those which reward the "natural philosopher."[14] The title
of his first work, a "_Treatise of Human Nature, being an Attempt to
introduce the Experimental method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects_,"
sufficiently indicates the point of view from which Hume regarded
philosophical problems; and he tells us in the preface, that his object
has been to promote the construction of a "science of man."

"'Tis evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or
less, to human nature; and that, however wide any of them may seem
to run from it, t