of Andronicus Rhodius. - 3. The Magic Song. - 4. Pure Reason and Practical Reason. 5. The Annex of the Universe.

Idealism, as defined by the dictionary, the Idealism of the schools, the Idealism that is spelt with a capital I, is a system of metaphysical philosophy. Those are the words with which Latham begins his explanation. And the issue that they raise is one that cannot be escaped. Did the Testator use the word idealist in the technical sense of the schoolmen? Did he intend this Prize for systems of metaphysical philosophy?

Berkeleyism did not end with Berkeley. His doctrine, or his language, was taken up by greater men. It was the greatest of them, Kant, who really stamped the word Idealism with this sense, and gave it currency. Since his time the term has almost replaced the word metaphysical. Among modern metaphysicians, Idealism is your only wear.

I have already said that Nobel's bequest seems to

me a challenge to this sort of idealism, that is to say, a challenge to the science or mystery of Metaphysics. Brought face to face with this word in Doctor Latham's explanation of idealism, I felt I had no choice but to examine it.

1

I approached this famous word with not a little dread, arising partly from my want of skill in Mediterranean languages, and partly from a well-known incident in its recent history.

In the last century there was formed in London a private debating club under the name of the Metaphysical Society. Its members were some of the ablest men of their generation, Tennyson the poet, Gladstone the statesman, Spencer the philosopher, Manning the churchman, Huxley the scientist. These distinguished men met and talked together for ten years, and at the end of that time they broke up the society, because, as one of them said, they had not yet agreed on the meaning of the word metaphysics.

I was not rash enough to hope I could succeed where such distinguished men had failed, but I was happy in the knowledge that I had not so hard

a task as theirs. They had sought for a definition of metaphysics; I wanted merely a working sense, a sense that would enable me to judge if a metaphysical work came within the meaning of the Testator.

The word was Greek to all appearance, but, like idealist, it turned out to be one of those Greek words which the Greeks themselves were never fortunate enough to know. In the lexicon I could find only its two pieces, meta and phusikos.

Phusikos did not seem a word hard to translate. Natural, native, begotten, born,-such were the meanings offered me by the Greek lexicon. But meta, on the other hand, proved to have the most variable meanings of any word I have ever met. It meant almost everything from inside to outside. With nothing but the Greek words to help me I might have groped for ever for the meaning of metaphysics among words like supernatural and unnatural, afterbirth and unborn.

I do not know how far it is the case in other languages, but in English, words like physical, material, real, natural and sensible all ring well; they suggest the true and useful. Whereas words like immaterial, unreal, unnatural and senseless all ring badly; they suggest the false and foolish. The prejudice against the study of metaphysics in England attaches to the very name of the science, which is, as nearly as I could make out, in the vulgar tongue-nonsense.

I was obliged to go once more to Doctor Latham, this time with the most encouraging résult. For after explaining the word as "ontology, or the science of

the affections of being in general," and adding that the science in question was generally branded as an impossible one, he showed me that metaphysics is one of the few words whose beginning is known. I shall have written most of the foregoing pages in vain if there is any need for me to insist on the difference this made to me. That the word was a Babu formation would matter no more than it had mattered in the case of dynamite, as soon as I could come to the mixture.

I quote Doctor Latham's authority, a distinguished writer on metaphysics, named Mansel.

"The term metaphysics, though originally employed to designate a treatise of Aristotle, was probably unknown to the philosopher himself. On the whole the weight of evidence appears to be in favour of the supposition which attributes the inscription ta meta ta phusika to Andronicus Rhodius, the first editor of Aristotle's collected works."

Andronicus Rhodius, it appears, like Columbus, added a new continent to the realms of knowledge by accident.

"The title, as given to the writings on the first philosophy, probably indicates only their place in the collection, as coming after the physical treatises of the author. "

And thus we see the word came into being as a direction to the binder.-The question is whether it has ever become anything more?

II

Among the wonderful beliefs of those old heathen men who, guessing where we count and measure, prophesied of all the lore to come, is none more wonderful than that which shines through the magic song of the Finns, the belief in the creative power of the uttered word. What else is the story

of Andrónikos of Rhodes? He uttered, all unwittingly, his wizard spell; and lo! Professors of Metaphysics in all the Roman universities of Europe and America.

What, then, is the mixture of which Aristotle's editor furnished only the name? What is it that the professors have been professing for two thousand years?

If I turn for an answer to this question to a popular work of reference, like the Encyclopaedia Britannica, I find that the official teachers of the science of Andronicus Rhodius have been no more able to agree among themselves than the members of the Metaphysical Society. The history of metaphysics is the history of the attempt to supply a mixture to fit the name. The enchanted squirrels have toiled in the sorcerer's cage. They have written whole learned libraries; the Mediterranean words have gone round and round in imposing procession; but the writers have not gained an inch.