A TREATISE ON THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON A PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF Reasoning, SHOWING THE RECOGNITION TO COGNITION, THE IDENTITY OF REESE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA BY MRS. P. F. FITZGERALD. The purpose of philosophy is a rationale of the universe." "Science is but a more exactly reasoned version of human experience than common sense." that hath it."-Prov. iv. 5, xvi. 22. "Ask what most helps when known." London: THOMAS LAURIE, 28, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1887. 41 AUTHOR'S ADDRESS TO READER. THE present volume is perhaps rather an elaboration of the theory of the Principles of thought (which I have already submitted to the reflective public under the title of "An Essay on the Philosophy of Self-Consciousness") than a sequel to my first volume, except in the sense that the present work treats rather of the synthesis of the spontaneous intuitions under the reflective principle of sufficient reason, than of each of the three principles of causality taken separately. The spiritual nature of man is seen in his capacity of reflecting on the passing phenomena of his own being, in his power of classifying them as sensational, emotional, intellectual, and moral, and in his faculty of generalization, under the categories of causality and of postulation or assumption, according to these, i.e. of inductive and deductive inference, according to the logical principle of non-contradiction of Being, or of Essential experience, which alone constitutes a sufficient reason for belief. It appears to me that the oriental statement that "a man must be born again to the spirit (the Brahmins, Zoroastrians, Israelites, and others alike held it) is but a figurative mode of expressing the truth that man must rise above his animal nature through the exercise of his power of reflective introspection, which forms the basis of the religious life, with its faith and hope in a Future state of blessedness arising out of his necessary or logical assumption of a Supreme or Absolute Creative Being. It is a subject of great regret to me, in offering this fruit of my own life-long experience and reflection to the public, that my want of literary practice, bad memory, and failing sight (which have again necessitated my turning to the able friend who assisted me in my first work) disable me from doing more justice to my theory of reflective or sufficient reason. But even as it stands, so greatly does it support me under the deepening shadows of life, which the doctrines of secularism and pessimism must render literally maddening, that |
